The more dramatic temperatures rise, the more we can expect our economic divides to widen.
|
THIS WEEK
|
|
UN reports don’t often make global headlines, but one certainly did last week. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a bombshell: We’ve got 12 years to avoid environmental catastrophe.
Inequality runs as a consistent theme throughout this new landmark UN study. The more dramatically temperatures rise, a whole section makes clear, the more we can expect our economic divides to widen. More this week on why we need to become more equal to have any real shot at successfully confronting climate change.
Chuck Collins, for the Institute for Policy Studies Inequality.org team |
|
|
|
|
INEQUALITY BY THE NUMBERS
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
FACES ON THE FRONTLINES
|
 |
Black Workers Call for Change in the Care Industry
|
| Black domestic workers are at the forefront of a movement to improve working conditions in one of America’s fastest-growing and lowest-paid industries. The Institute for Policy Studies has teamed up with the National Domestic Workers Alliance to tell the stories of worker leaders in Atlanta and Durham through a two-volume photo-journalistic report, Pay, Professionalism, and Respect. The report traces the many common threads that run through these workers' experiences, from wage theft and inadequate pay to a lack of on-the-job protections. Black women are elevating the industry, the report shows, both by setting standards for care that go far beyond what they’re paid to provide and by organizing for better working conditions. |
|
|
|
|
WORDS OF WISDOM
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
PETULANT PLUTOCRAT
OF THE WEEK
|
 |
| In New York, the Art of a Deal Gone Bitterly Bad |
| “If you gain fame, power, or wealth,” the philosopher Philip Slater once noted, “you won’t have any trouble finding lovers, but they will be people who love fame, power, or wealth.” Tell me about it, David Mugrabi might be thinking right about now. The billionaire art dealer and his wife Libbie Mugrabi are currently contesting a bitter divorce that has the New York couple in and out of the courts and the headlines. In July, the two tussled in a tug-of-war over a $500,000 20-inch-tall Andy Warhol sculpture. Libbie claims the incident had her fearing for her life, and a friend has testified that David angrily called her and Libbie “low-lifes” and “gold-diggers.” The latest installment: Last Tuesday, lawyers argued over how much Libbie should get for a vacation she and their two kids will be taking this Thanksgiving. Libbie’s lawyer asked for an amount commensurate with the couple’s “$3.5-million-a-year lifestyle.” The judge okayed $4,000, then added: “No one’s going to starve in this family.” |
|
|
|
|
GREED AT A GLANCE
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
TOO MUCH
|
 |
| Confronting Climate Change in an Unequal World |
| Two meticulously sourced reports about our shared global future have appeared over the past week. The first — from a global scientific panel on the prospects for our warming planet — has terrified much of the world. The second looks at how well our world’s nations are moving “to tackle the gap between rich and poor.” But the world, at least so far, doesn’t seem much interested in this report’s answers, and that spells trouble — and catastrophe — ahead. Either we become a far more equal world or we have no shot at a sustainable future. Inequality.org co-editor Sam Pizzigati, author of the just-published The Case for a Maximum Wage, explains why. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
MUST READS
|
This week on Inequality.org
Peter Bakvis, The World Bank’s Fuzzy Math on Inequality and the Future of Work. The Bank's annual World Development Report distorts data to dismiss concerns about inequality and promote a deregulatory approach to new technologies.
Sarah Anderson, US, UK Progressive Leaders Aim to Open Corporate Boardrooms to Workers. UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren have both launched plans to shift the balance of power from shareholders to workers, including requiring worker representation on boards.
Chuck Collins, Promoting Luxury Housing with an Ironic Twist. The artist behind a provocative faux sales office highlights the dangers of Boston's luxury housing boom.
Josh Hoxie, No One in the United States Should Be Poor, Period. Amazon's wage hike is welcome news, but nobody's well-being should depend on the whims of billionaire CEOs.
Saurav Sarkar, Virginians Show the Real Face of Poverty. Over 40 percent of Virginians struggle to get by — a problem made worse by voter suppression and military-first spending priorities.
Elsewhere on the web
Naomi Klein, Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh, and the Rule of Pampered Princelings, Intercept. Inherited wealth is shaping our ideological battles.
Lily Batchelder, How to Make Trump-Style Wealth Pay Its Fair Share, New York Times. One fix: Congress could replace our hollowed-out estate tax with a direct tax on inherited income.
Bartlett Naylor, Washington keeps failing to rein in banker pay, American Banker. Ten years since the Wall Street crash, Washington still hasn’t touched the wallet of a single banker.
Paul Segal, Inequality Represents a Wasted Opportunity for Poverty Reduction, Institute for New Economic Thinking. By failing to reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else, we are keeping poverty rates much too high.
Chuck Collins, Lessons from the Trumps’ tax-avoidance racket, Nation. Donald Trump has had at his disposal armies of lawyers, tax accountants, and financial planners to frack every possible tax loophole.
Nicole Karlis, In Silicon Valley, the rich get richer while wages stagnate for the rest, Salon. An alarming new study details growing inequality in high-tech land.
Jeff Bryant, How the Wealthy Destroy Public Schools, One Gift at a Time, Our Future.org. Two new reports have the details. |
|
|
|
|
