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

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.

AIPAC SPENT $40 MILLION LOBBYING CONGRESS

“A great deal of money went into the struggle over the
[nuclear agreement with Iran]. The lead in opposing it was
taken by AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee], which
aligns itself on Israel's security matters with the Likud party
and its leader, [Benjamin] Netanyahu. (When the more peace-
minded Yitzahk Rabin was prime minister, his relationship with
AIPAC was rocky.) Until this fight AIPAC was seen as a fearsome
organization with the muscle and money to almost always get
its way with Congress. AIPAC and its allies have been reported
to have spent as much as $40 million opposing the agreement,
although some estimates are lower. Until this fight, AIPAC had
acted as a bipartisan organization, but in vehemently opposing
the deal [the nuclear agreement with Iran] it became an
ally of the Republicans in a highly partisan fight.”

Elizabeth Drew, “How They Failed to Block the Iran Deal,” New York Review, October 22, 2015, pp: 75-77.

JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS LOBBIED CONGRESS

“Allied with AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee]
were other Jewish organizations such as the Anti-
Defamation League; various local Jewish Federations;
the Zionist Organization of America, which - on the day of
the Senate's voting and with the deal's proponents clearly winning -
sponsored a rally on Capitol Hill against the deal,
featuring Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. The casino billionaire
Sheldon Adelson poured millions into this fight through
the National Zionist Organization. Also active were Bill Kristol's
Emergency Committee for Israel and the Republican Jewish Coalition,
a very ideologically hawkish group, which in 2008 linked Obama to
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and
Patrick Buchanan. It was understood by the Republican presidential
candidates that strong opposition to the deal was a possible route to
big campaign contributions from Adelson. The candidates were
divided only over whether they would kill the deal on their first day
in office or give it a little more time.”

Elizabeth Drew, “How They Failed to Block the Iran Deal,” New York Review, October 22, 2015, pp: 75-77.

ABSENCE OF SCALIA COULD CHANGE SUPREME COURT

“ . . . there's no guarantee that his [Justice Anton Scalia’s] death will change things.
But many of the Roberts [Supreme] Court's most important
business cases were decided by a 5-4 margin, with the five
conservarive Justices voting as a bloc. And, as [Vanderbilt
University professor Brian] Fitzpatrick points out, ‘[Justice Antonin]

Scalia has done more than any other justice in making
it difficult for consumers and employees to bring class-action
suits. So his absence alone may make a difference.’ There have
already been signs of this: just last week, Dow Chemical settled
a major class-action suit, saying that Scalia's death
increased the chances of ‘unfavorable outcomes for business.’
It's unlikely that Scalia will be replaced anytime soon. But
let's hope that, when a successor is finally appointed, it is

someone willing to give ordinary citizens the day in court
that Scalia worked so hard to deny them.”

James Surowiecki, “Courting Business,” New Yorker, March 17, 2016, page 21.

BUSINESSES ‘SMELLED BLOOD’

“Since the [Ronald] Reagan Administration Republican Presidents have filled the [Supreme] Court with Justices steeped in the ideology of the conservative legal movement. As Brian Fitzpatrick, a law professor at Vanderbilt [University] who once clerked for [Justice Antonin] Scalia, told me, ‘Conservative Justices start from a world view that says we have too much litigation in general and it's a sap on the economy.’ Conservative nominees to the [Supreme] Court have been far more worried about government overreach than about corporate misbehavior. They have been skeptical of the use of class-action suits to achieve social goals or enforce regulations. And, once corporations recognized that the [Supreme] Court was predisposed to favor their interests, they began pursuing those interests more aggressively. As the legendary NYU law professor Arthur R. Miller told me, ‘The business community smelled blood and went after it.’ Most notably, the Chamber of Commerce has become assiduous in pushing corporate cases to the [Supreme] Court.” James Surowiecki, “Courting Business,” New Yorker, March 17, 2016, page 21.

James Surowiecki, “Courting Business,” New Yorker, March 17, 2016, page 21.