Saturday, March 5, 2016

Gateway to Sources and Information About Income Inequality in the United States


In the United States today, one percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top one percent control 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. Millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, and yet almost all of the new income and wealth being created is going to the top one percent. While the top one percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. 
  Scholars, from the Nobel-Prize-winning Paul Krugman to the widely respected economist James Surowiecki, have been working to analyze these disparities. Americans are not generally aware of the extent of this income inequality. In most developed countries, there is a direct relationship between income inequality and the public's views about the need to address the issue – but not in America, where income inequality is worse but the concern is lower. The most commonly accepted measurement of income inequality, the Gini Index, ranks the United States sixth-worst among 173 nations. 

   
Private-equity companies are far more obviously connected to an undue concentration of wealth at the expense of workers and communities than are collateralized-debt obligations, which were at the core of our 2008 Great Recession. Within the one percent, there is a top one percent that consists disproportionately of private-equity and hedge-fund principals.



Gateway to Sources and Information About Income Inequality in the United States


In the United States today, one percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top one percent control 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. Millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, and yet almost all of the new income and wealth being created is going to the top one percent. While the top one percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. 
  Scholars, from the Nobel-Prize-winning Paul Krugman to the widely respected economist James Surowiecki, have been working to analyze these disparities. Americans are not generally aware of the extent of this income inequality. In most developed countries, there is a direct relationship between income inequality and the public's views about the need to address the issue – but not in America, where income inequality is worse but the concern is lower. The most commonly accepted measurement of income inequality, the Gini Index, ranks the United States sixth-worst among 173 nations. 

   
Private-equity companies are far more obviously connected to an undue concentration of wealth at the expense of workers and communities than are collateralized-debt obligations, which were at the core of our 2008 Great Recession. Within the one percent, there is a top one percent that consists disproportionately of private-equity and hedge-fund principals.



MARK ZUCKERBERG

“After Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan announced their plan to donate nearly all of their Facebook stock to charitable causes, the initial laudatory coverage was followed by a series of stories that raised many important questions about their decision, - including its implications for avoiding – taxes, the large sums it would potentially cost the US government, and the huge amount of power it would place in the hands of two people. As John Cassidy observed in The New Yorker, ‘The more money billionaires give to their charitable foundations, which in most cases remain under their personal
control, the more influence they will accumulate.’"


Massing, Michael, ‘How to Cover the One Percent,’ The New York Review, January 14, 2016, pp: 74-76.
PHILANTHROCAPITALISTS

“. . . many of today's philanthropists are more activist than those in the past. A number are current or former hedge fund managers, private equity executives, and tech entrepreneurs who, having made their fortunes on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley, are now seeking to apply their know-how to social problems. Rather than simply write checks for existing institutions, these
philanthrocapitalists, as they are often called, aggressively seek to shape their operations.”



Massing, Michael, ‘How to Cover the One Percent,’ The New York Review,
January 14, 2016, pp: 74-76.
THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

“As The Washington Post reported in 2014 . . .  the Brookings Institution, long known for
its "impeccable research," has in recent years placed more and more emphasis on expansion and fund-raising, ‘giving scholars a bigger role in seeking money from donors and giving donors a voice in Brookings's research agenda.In one example, Brookings in November 2012 was visited by a lawyer representing Peter B. Lewis, the billionaire insurance executive who toward the end of his life embraced the cause of legalizing marijuana. Before the visit, the think tank had done little work on the issue, but soon after, the Post reported, it "emerged as a hub of research" supporting legalization, with prominent scholars offering at least twenty seminars, papers, or Op-Ed pieces. Before his death in 2013, Lewis donated $500,000 to Brookings, and two of the scholars involved said they knew he was their benefactor.”


Massing, Michael, ‘How to Cover the One Percent,’ The New York Review, January 14, 2016, pp: 74-76.
TECH GODS GIVETH

“Alessandra Stanley, ‘The Tech Gods Giveth" in The New York Times, November 1,
2
015, raises questions about how much radical change Silicon Valley
philanthropists truly support.”



Massing, Michael, ‘How to Cover the One Percent,’ The New York Review, January 14, 2016, pp: 74-76.
MIXED ATTITUDE TOWARD VERY WEALTHY

"We've always had this very mixed attitude toward very wealthy people giving                 q
their money away," said Leslie Lenkowsky,    an Indiana University professor. "It's a long,
drawn
-out controversy. Our concerns about equality and inequality are bringing it back to the surface today.”


Associated Press. Michael Hill, “The Rich Give, and Get Grief,” printed in the Bloomsburg (PA) Press-Enterprise, pp: 25 and 28, January 27, 2016.
BILLIONAIRE GIVERS GET GRIEF

“In recent months, a hedge fund billionaire was denounced for his $400 million gift to the
already
wealthy Harvard University; David Geffen took flak for gifts that plaster his
name on a Manhattan concert hall and a Los Angeles school; and the wife of a Wall Street I
banker was roasted for trying to put her name on a small Adirondacks college. Even
Bill Gates, who has given billions to battle diseases, is taking lumps in a new book titled
No Such Thing as a Free Gift."

Associated Press. Michael Hill, “The Rich Give, and Get Grief,” printed in the Bloomsburg (PA) Press-Enterprise, pp: 25 and 28, January 27, 2016.


PAUL SMITH’S COLLEGE

Joan Weill, the wife of billionaire former Citigroup CEO Sanford Weill . . . .
offered $20 million to Paul Smith's College in New York's Adirondacks - but only if the small college changed its name to Joan Weill – Paul Smith’s College.

“A court eventually ruled the bequest that established the college barred the name
change. Weill chose not to give the $20 million.

“Alumni took to Facebook to excoriate the proposal, underscoring the role social media can play in amplifying controversies “


Associated Press. Michael Hill, “The Rich Give, and Get Grief,” printed in the Bloomsburg (PA) Press-Enterprise, pp: 25 and 28, January 27, 2016.