In recent days, the public learned that Jeff Bezos’ net worth has soared to more than $170 billion. Bill Gates trails Bezos at “only” $114 billion. The Walton family is in the same range ($150 billion among three of them). This vast accumulation of wealth by a very tiny number of people distorts the entire economy, especially since it contrasts with millions of people who are unemployed, homeless, and living in deep poverty. Is this the America we love? Is this the America that we want?
G.F. Brandenburg has reposted an essay here about the “looting of America” by the super-rich.
To change this imbalance which eats away at the soul of our society, we need the courage to write a new tax code. I don’t know how to write a tax code but I know what inequity looks like. It looks like what we have today.
Time to recommend an important book: The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And let’s not forget Zuckerberg at about 90 billion. I was encouraged when so many businesses boycotted Facebook in the “Stop the Hate for Profit” campaign. But it doesn’t look like it’s enough to make a difference.
https://www.stophateforprofit.org
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/9/21318896/facebook-civil-rights-audit-hate-speech-failed-zuckerberg-white-nationalism-sheryl-sandberg
And, let’s not forget John Arnold who uses his wealth to destroy public pensions and to privatize public education. What he did at Enron coupled with his hedge fund activities should make him persona non grata in any country. NPPC (National Protect Pensions Coalition) posted videos about John.
To have extreme wealth is one thing. Is it okay? I don’t think so. My wife and I are retired but we live very comfortably and really do not need or understand the extreme wealth that so many in this country and others find necessary to be happy and comfortable. DeVos with all her yachts, airplanes, helicopters, and houses cannot be any happier than my wife and myself. She has to worry about keeping her wealth. We don’t.
What is really important about wealth is what one does with it. Hoarding it in a bank accounts or in some off shore tax free account is meaningless serving no useful purpose.
The question to be ask is what percentage of the wealth that Gates, Bezos, Waltons, and others at same level of wealth give back to this nation to support those less fortunate.
It would be interesting to figure out the percentage of giving based on wealth of the middle class and the one-percent class and see which actually gives the most from their wealth to support others. I think the middle class gives more percentage wise then the wealthy.
Concentrated wealth strangles economic opportunity.
Headlines, like 1/3 of Americans missed this month’s mortgage payment, that most Americans are one medical catastrophe from bankruptcy, that 1 in 5 American children live in poverty, that Americans have far more personal debt than the Russian people, that
Americans have very little in savings for retirement, that suicides and drug addictions are at all time highs,….
“It would be interesting to figure out the percentage of giving based on wealth of the middle class and the one-percent class and see which actually gives the most from their wealth to support others.”
The middle class, hands down. First and foremost because for people like Bezos and Gates, it’s not their wealth to begin with. It’s money they should have been paying their employees, money they should have been paying in taxes and money they should never have gained in the first place because of anti-trust laws. If I rob a bank and “give” half of it to charity, no one is going to talk about my generosity.
Secondly and often less obviously, the “charity” of the wealthy is often tied directly back to their bank accounts. When Bill Gates “gives” educational hardware and software to schools, for instance, it makes them dependent on Microsoft products, which they constantly have to re-license, maintain and upgrade.
Lots of wealthy individuals make donations to a variety of non-profits including charter schools in order to reduce their tax burden. They can get a generous tax deduction for undermining the schools that 85 to 90% of students attend. We all would be better off if the super wealthy just paid their taxes like the rest of us.
I do not disagree that too much wealth is in the hands of too few people, but how much actual cash does someone like Bezos have compared to the value of the Amazon stock he holds. The value of the stock goes up, his wealth goes up. It goes down and his worth drops, too.
I think most of his wealth and the wealth of the others is on paper and not in a bank account as cash. No matter where that wealth is held, in stocks, property, or cash, it does buy them influence and power they should not be allowed to have.
Can’t wealth on paper that isn’t cash or real estate vanish in a breath as it did for so many millionaires on Black Friday and the days that followed in October 1929?
“By that time, the markets closed at 230.17 down 40% from its all-time high. In that single day, investors lost 14 billion dollars and by the end of 1929, 40 billion dollars was lost. This crash put a lot of pressure on banks and caused a great deal of money to be taken out of the economy.”
http://www.stockpickssystem.com/the-great-depression/
How much money does someone like Bezos have in cash (not in assets)?
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, had a salary of $81,840 in 2017—still very moderate by CEO standards. He gets about $1.6 million in other monetary cash compensation per year. So in sum, he might have between $5–15 million in cash assets since he is clearly an economic mind and will invest any excess cash.
“Jeff Bezos Has Sold $4.1 Billion in Amazon Shares Since January.” … “Bezos’s move wasn’t necessarily a surprise. Last August, for instance, he sold $2.8 billion in Amazon shares. He also sold a little less than that in previous years.”
https://www.inc.com/don-reisinger/jeff-bezos-has-sold-41-billion-in-amazon-shares-since-january-heres-what-he-might-be-doing-with-cash.html
If Amazon crashed tomorrow and its stock lost all of its value, Bezos would only be worth the cash and real estate he has on hand. It’s obvious that Bezos would still be a billionaire but probably a single-digit billionaire instead of three digits.
I wonder how much of the Walton fortune is tied up in Walmart stocks. If most of it was, I’d love to see Walmart crash and burn because people stopped shopping in those stores.
Our neoliberal policies have increased income inequality, and wealth does not “trickle down.” The middle class is barely standing, and the poor are largely ignored. We have become a plutocracy. Corporations and billionaires are pulling the strings of government, and they have no intention of giving up their power. They have written tax codes that benefit the super wealthy. If we want a more inclusive society, we must strengthen our social safety nets and public services. We are also facing a deteriorating job market from increased automation. If we want a participatory democracy, we need to work to get the money out of politics. Robert Reich has said that the real divide in America is not between Republicans and Democrats. It is between the 1% and everybody else. By the way Reich is a co-founder of Inequality Media, a group that produces easy to understand videos that inform the public about economics and politics from a progressive perspective. https://www.inequalitymedia.org/videos
If we want to revive our economy. We need to put money in the hands of working families that will spend it on goods and services. They will not hoard it offshore like the super wealthy. It is possible to have a capitalist economy with strong social safety nets. We need to look no further than northern Europe for an example of how to do it.
cx: If we want to revive our economy, we need to put money in the hands…
Economist Simon Johnson, former head of the IMF, wrote an enlightening article in 2009, “The Quiet Coup”. Johnson writes about the unpleasant truths behind the US financial system. One of the most alarming, according to Johnson, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government. It’s worth a read. He describes the current system of capture as something that resembles a countries in emerging markets.
It certainly explains why we have failed politically to solve the financial crisis, our healthcare crisis, and now the pandemic crisis.
“Of course, the U.S. is unique. And just as we have the world’s most advanced economy, military, and technology, we also have its most advanced oligarchy.” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/307364/
Assets are not the same as income, we actually need a modern definition of monopoly. … the mega corporations are the very essence of anti-competition. The free marketeers argue that competition in a free marketplace will increase choice and lower prices: the opposite is occurrring. Our economy is being gobbled up by ever growing “nations” within our nation.
Taxing the billionaires has a nice sound it is not the right approach.
Intercept- “The U.S.- a state hollowed out by years of elite corruption.”