November 13, 2024                                                         Home   Subscribe  Open in Browser

A week out from the presidential election, with votes still getting counted, the tally for Donald Trump now stands at over 75 million, about 3 million more than Kamala Harris's total. The far less publicized stat: Almost 100 million eligible voters didn’t vote.

Why did so many Americans choose to sit this year's White House contest out? Some clearly didn’t feel the candidates were adequately addressing the issues they care about. And what might those issues be? A new analysis of polling data from our friends at the Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute, just published on our website, puts taxing the rich at higher levels squarely on that list.

But poll results can’t set public policy. To beat plutocrats, we need a mass movement committed to a brighter future for all Americans. And we can create that movement if we join together and present a consistent vision of what a better society can look like. For us here at Inequality.org, the road to that future starts with taking on our nation’s wealthiest to help create quality lives for us all.

Chris Mills Rodrigo
for the Institute for Policy Studies’ Inequality.org team

Fighting for Worker Rights in the Belly of the Beast

This week’s frontline face: Dori Goldberg, an Amazon DCK6 warehouse worker and Teamster in San Francisco, California.

What he's doing to help create a more equal world: Goldberg and his Amazon warehouse colleagues announced recently that they had majority support in their workplace to form a union represented by the Teamsters.

Amazon, now the country's second-largest private employer behind Walmart, has distinguished itself as a uniquely anti-union company. It has spent millions and millions of dollars on union-busting specialists at even the smallest sign of worker organizing. The good news is that Amazon's control isn't total, it still depends on workers to run its vast delivery network. Union organizing has seen a major uptick at Amazon recently, and looks set to snowball.

What makes equality so important to him: "As our numbers grow, our power grows," Goldberg wrote for Inequality.org. "We must set our sights on forcing Amazon to come to the bargaining table and win a strong contract."

"This is our moment. Let’s seize it."

Don't Let Big Tech Monopolize AI

Artificial intelligence is the hot new tech commodity on the block, replacing NFTs and the metaverse as the new buzzphrase that inexplicably pulls in millions from venture capital funds. Whether you believe in the potential of the technology or not, the way that the market has shifted recently is cause for concern.

Established players in the technology space have begun using their dominant market positions to crowd out competitors and ensure that the boon only makes the rich richer.

Thankfully, according to a new report by the Open Markets Institute and the Mozilla Foundation, antitrust regulators worldwide already have the tools they need to stop Big Tech from monopolizing AI. The goal now: to compel governments to use that authority — before Big Tech locks down the AI space.

President-elect Trump campaigned on grand promises of middle-class tax cuts. But an Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analysis finds that the only Americans who would benefit from his proposals are those in the richest 5 percent. The Institute’s analysis incorporates Trump’s proposed tariffs, taxes on imported goods that will likely be passed on to consumers. The analysis also assumes that GOP lawmakers will extend the 2017 Republican tax reforms that heavily favor the wealthy. The Institute for Policy Studies and other progressive groups are gearing up for a major tax battle next year in a narrowly divided Congress. For an interactive version of this chart, click the link below.

Most Americans Want What Donald Trump Doesn’t

With Donald Trump about to re-enter the White House and his sidekicks about to assume control over Congress, America’s progressives are once again shifting — to playing defense. But the best defense, as one old football adage suggests, almost always turns out to be a good offense.

In the coming Trump redux, can we progressives take that adage to heart? Dare we go on offense and maybe even snatch a victory or two? We certainly can — if we start pushing for what the vast majority of Americans so want to see: an America where the really rich don’t run the show. Inequality.org co-editor Sam Pizzigati has more.

A Banker Much Too Busy Profiteering To Ever Back Down

This week’s dour deep pocket: the banker Jamie Dimon, the billionaire JPMorgan Chase CEO who last year collected $36 million in annual compensation for his consumer-squeezing derring-do.

What has Dimon sour: Federal bank regulators and their eagerness to challenge the banking industry’s continuing rush of mergers and acquisitions.

“It’s gross,” Dimon told the American Bankers Association convention late last month. “Time to fight back.”   

And “if you’re in a knife fight,” he added, “you better damn well bring a knife.”

The last word: Dimon’s “knife fight” tirade, notes the Lever’s Katya Schwenk, came “just after a lobbying group Dimon chairs sued the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “to protect a scheme that prevents consumers from switching banks.”

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