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Calls for systemic change, in this last month of 2019, are getting harder and harder to ignore. We are witnessing an incredible year of protest, with uprisings taking place in dozens of countries.
These protests all have local triggers. But they also all reflect the same reality: a global economic order that channels wealth to the top, with little or even no concern for the inequality and injustice that results. We’ve got more this week on the movements growing out of this moment of tumult, more on the demand for a polity and an economy that takes care of us all.
Chuck Collins, for the Institute for Policy Studies Inequality.org team
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| INEQUALITY BY THE NUMBERS |
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| FACES ON THE FRONTLINES |
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| As Inequality Rises, So Are Movements Fighting It |
| Over the past year, fuel and transit price hikes and other economic policies that hit the poor hardest have sparked mass protests worldwide, from Chile and Ecuador to Lebanon and France. People have had enough — and they’re demanding systemic change. A new report out of the Fight Inequality Alliance gathers insights from over 170 activists in 23 countries on how to build and sustain movements against inequality. |
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| WORDS OF WISDOM |
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PETULANT PLUTOCRAT
OF THE WEEK |
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| Clueless and Sexist, Another Billionaire Craters |
| At first, billionaire money manager Ken Fisher couldn’t understand all the fuss people were making. Yes, at an early October CEO summit hosted by Tiburon Strategic Advisors, Fisher had indeed compared the process of gaining a client’s trust to “trying to get into a girl’s pants.” But, as Fisher tried to explain the next day, he had “said stuff like this” many times in the past and never before heard a negative peep. Fisher’s Tiburon talk drew plenty of those peeps after a financial industry exec attending the no-press-allowed event sent out a tweet calling Fisher’s remarks “absolutely horrifying.” The tweet went viral, and Fisher eventually issued a formal apology. Sort of. The 68-year-old wondered to one interviewer whether “anybody will be candid at one of these Tiburon events again.” Last week, MarketWatch reported that Fisher and his money-management firm “are reeling.” Fisher Investments has lost $3.9 billion in institutional assets since Fisher’s October remarks. |
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| GREED AT A GLANCE |
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| TOO MUCH |
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| Football without Billionaire Owners? Why Not? |
| For fans of Washington’s NFL pro football franchise, this has been the autumn of their discontent. On gamedays, their soulless stadium sits half empty. Their losing team is once again wasting away a season, and fans are blaming the team’s billionaire owner Dan Snyder. They have good reason. Snyder has spent the last 20 years overcharging supporters and disrespecting players and coaches at every opportunity. The NFL’s arrogant billionaire owners appear to believe that the fan furor in Washington will eventually die down. Maybe not. Fans are stirring, and not just in Washington. The billionaire lockgrip on sports is becoming a global hot-button issue. Inequality.org co-editor Sam Pizzigati has more. |
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| MUST READS |
This week on Inequality.org
Evelyn Astor, Austerity Wave Undercuts Global Goals on Poverty and Inequality. International leaders meeting at the ILO to discuss social protection policies must address the painful spending cutbacks that are provoking protests in many nations.
Sarah Anderson, A Corporate Tax Even Republicans Should Love. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other congressional progressives want to tax companies that overpay their CEOs. Most Republicans would go even further.
Bob Lord, The U-Turn that Turned America Staggeringly Unequal. For decades in the mid 20th century, our nation’s grandest private fortunes were becoming less pronounced. And then…
Elsewhere on the Web
Amber A'Lee Frost, The WeWork Con, Jacobin. The $47 billion WeWork implosion: more proof that the rich may be the biggest suckers of all.
Adam Serwer, It’s Not the Greed — It’s the Inequality, The Atlantic. America’s gilded class regards the possibility of higher taxes and redistribution as a greater threat than a resurgent racist authoritarianism that imperils America’s still-young experiment in multiracial democracy.
John Nichols, Democrats Don’t Need Mike Bloomberg’s Kinder, Gentler Plutocracy, The Nation. If Democrats trade a faux billionaire for a legit billionaire, they haven’t learned much from the last four years.
Lisa Urias, Just like in Mexico, the U.S. wealth gap is massive and dangerous if we don’t turn the tide, Arizona Republic. Mexico’s longstanding political reality has important lessons for the United States.
Rich Boberg, It's time to (sur)tax the rich, East Oregonian. A Patriotic Millionaires activist explains the reasoning behind subjecting all income over $2 million to a 10-percent surtax.
Hamilton Nolan, Billionaire-funded protest is rearing its head in America, The Guardian. Astroturf campaigns don’t have to be sophisticated. They need only generate 30-second TV hits to get the job done. |
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| A FINAL FIGURE |
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