"It more than a little ironic that these experts at tax avoidance are at the helm of a technological revolution that could drive inequality to new, unprecedented heights." Eduardo Porter in The Guardian

Analysis

by  Eduardo Porter

Condemned to plutocracy? The relentless rise of US inequality

Elon Musk is a beneficiary of America’s lopsided prosperity – does the country have any appetite for redistribution?

People protest against the SpaceX IPO in New York. Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPA

As Barack Obama’s presidency was coming to a close, Jason Furman, then chairman of the president’s council of economic advisers, laid out the strides his administration had made to curb the nation’s exorbitant income inequality in “the largest investments in reducing inequality since the Great Society”.

Indeed, by the end of 2016, taxes and transfers cut the share of income accruing to the richest 1% of households by just over a fifth, according to estimates from the congressional budget office (CBO), more than under any government since at least Jimmy Carter’s. They raised the slice of income going to the poorest fifth from 3.9% to 7.9%, the highest share since at least 1979.

Those were the days.

As Elon Musk is anointed the world’s first trillionaire, following the public offering of shares of his internet to AI conglomerate SpaceX, that moment, just 10 years ago, when the government bragged about its efforts to curb America’s lopsided distribution of prosperity, might give us some hope that we are not condemned to plutocracy; social and political forces can stop inequality’s relentless rise.

Benjamin Franklin liked to talk of America’s “happy mediocrity” – a country with “few … so miserable as the poor of Europe … few that in Europe would be called rich”. And yet, America’s history of combating inequality is rather grim. Obama’s track record as the United States’s most committed equalizer in over half a century underscores the ultimate lack of interest of the nation’s political coalitions in bringing about a more equitable distribution of the fruits of prosperity.

Supposedly a populist champion of the working stiff, Donald Trump’s priorities quickly turned elsewhere. His Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 offered massive tax cuts to Americans in the upper percentiles of income... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/21/us-inequality-plutocracy

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"Reducing inequality was “not only about fairness, but essential for the resilience of economies, the stability of democracies, and the viability of our planet”" .......Just 0.001% hold three times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds- Data from World Inequality Report also showed top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90%

People protest against extreme wealth in London. The report found that in almost every region, the top 1% was wealthier than the bottom 90% combined.
Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images

Jon Henley

Wed 10 Dec 2025 02.00 EST

Fewer than 60,000 people – 0.001% of the world’s population – control three times as much wealth as the entire bottom half of humanity, according to a report that argues global inequality has reached such extremes that urgent action has become essential.

The authoritative World Inequality Report 2026, based on data compiled by 200 researchers, also found that the top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90% combined, while the poorest half captures less than 10% of total global earnings.

Wealth – the value of people’s assets – was even more concentrated than income, or earnings from work and investments, the report found, with the richest 10% of the world’s population owning 75% of wealth and the bottom half just 2%.

In almost every region, the top 1% was wealthier than the bottom 90% combined, the report found, with wealth inequality increasing rapidly around the world.

“The result is a world in which a tiny minority commands unprecedented financial power, while billions remain excluded from even basic economic stability,” the authors, led by Ricardo Gómez-Carrera of the Paris School of Economics, wrote.

The share of global wealth held by the top 0.001% has grown from almost 4% in 1995 to more than 6%, the report said, while the wealth of multimillionaires had increased by about 8% annually since the 1990s – nearly twice the rate of the bottom 50%.... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2025/dec/10/just-0001-hold-three-times-the-wealth-of-poorest-half-of-humanity-report-finds

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"We may speak thousands of languages, but we all call this planet home. No matter where we come from, protecting our Earth is a shared responsibility. We need more ambitious #ClimateAction — for our planet and the generations to come."

United Nations

@UN

 

We may speak thousands of languages, but we all call this planet home. No matter where we come from, protecting our Earth is a shared responsibility. We need more ambitious #ClimateAction — for our planet and the generations to come. — via @UNDP  

 https://x.com/UN/status/2040399735526195506

UN Development- Working to end poverty, inequality & climate change & advance the #GlobalGoals.  

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The $2.7 trillion question - what is the true cost of security? | A new report by the United Nations Secretary-General explores how rebalancing military spending for a sustainable and peaceful future can furnish the security we need.

 

War, conflict, and crisis. 

For ten years, the world has been shaken by inequalities, climate chaos and rising tensions. 

Against this backdrop, military spending reached a record $2.7 trillion last year. 

This choice has a steep cost. It moves us away from diplomacy. It drains money from vital areas like ending hunger and poverty. 

A new report by the United Nations Secretary-General explores how rebalancing military spending for a sustainable and peaceful future can furnish the security we need. 

 The report shows a stark choice: continue to fund militaries or invest in sustainable development to build a future that is truly secure for everyone

. 

United Nations

United Nations experts (& international law) call for end to Israeli State and settler violence in the West Bank

The UN emblem is a symbol of hope, peace and unity around the world.  As the United Nations remain committed to advancing peace, dignity and equality for all on a healthy planet

 

GENEVA - UN experts* today expressed grave concern over systematic and ongoing violations by Israeli settlers and Israeli security forces against Palestinian peasants and rural workers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

"We are deeply troubled by alleged widespread intimidation, violence, land dispossession, destruction of livelihoods and the resulting forcible displacement of communities, and we fear this is severing Palestinians from their land and undermining their food security,” the experts said.

"The alleged acts of violence, destruction of property, and denial of access to land and resources appear to constitute a systemic pattern of human rights violations," they said.

The experts noted a disturbing pattern of attacks targeting West Bank communities, including assaults on civilians, destruction of homes and livelihoods, and the forcible displacement of families.

“Settler violence has reportedly involved arson, livestock theft, and the poisoning or destruction of water sources, severely undermining the ability of Palestinians to sustain their agricultural way of life,” the experts added. “The demolition of Palestinian-owned structures has further exacerbated the humanitarian crisis, leaving families homeless and vulnerable.”

They said the continued attacks targeting Palestinian Bedouin, peasant and rural communities do not appear to be incidental, but rather an intentional strategy to erase their presence in key agricultural areas, undermine their food security and food sovereignty and ultimately sever Palestinians from their land. Hundreds of Bedouin families, including a significant number of children, have been displaced due to settler violence and intimidation.

These attacks have caused significant economic harm, including an estimated USD $76 million in direct agricultural damages in the West Bank between October 7, 2023, and late 2024. It is estimated that the West Bank GDP declined by more than 19 per cent, and the unemployment rate rose to 35 per cent.

"Israel, as the occupying power, bears the obligation to take necessary measures to safeguard Palestinian communities at risk of displacement and violence," the experts said. "This includes stopping the violence immediately, halting illegal settlement expansion, holding effective and impartial investigations into violations, prosecuting those responsible, and guaranteeing victims access to justice and reparations."

“It is essential that the West Bank be kept under Palestinian control, based on the rights to self-determination of the Palestinian people and full respect of international law,” they said. “Israel must promptly bring to an end its unlawful presences in the West Bank, and ensure its compliance with the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice issued on 19 July 2024, including by evacuating all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The experts called on the international community to act with urgency to hold perpetrators accountable and ensure that violent settlers and armed forces cannot continue to operate with impunity.

“Silence and inaction only embolden further violations. We call on all States to uphold their obligations under international law—including through targeted measures, sanctions, and diplomatic pressure—to end these systematic abuses and protect Palestinian lives, livelihoods, and fundamental rights. The time for justice is now,” they said.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/07/un-experts-call-end-israeli-state-and-settler-violence-west-bank 

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‘They just see you as an Arab’: Israel’s Palestinian citizens given cursory protection from attack. Deaths of four family members sheltering in supposed ‘safe rooms’ in Tamra highlight racial inequality of Israel’s defence of its citizens

Ruins of the Khatib family home in which Manar Khatib, her two daughter and sister-in-law all died in two ‘safe rooms’ in the blast from an Iranian missile. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

...  The war between Israel and Iran involves powerful modern weapons that can turn a human body into vapour and scraps in an instant. Israel also has modern air defences which have managed thus far to intercept most of the incoming Iranian missiles. And for three-quarters of the country there are underground bunkers, a virtual guarantee of survival.

But the Khatib family did not have a bunker. They were Palestinian citizens of Israel, like the rest of the 37,000 population of this old hillside town in the Lower Galilee. And in common with most Palestinian-majority towns, Tamra does not have a single underground shelter. Like much else in Israel, there is nothing equal about the way death comes from the sky.

“The Israeli government, since the creation of the state, didn’t invest in one public shelter for the Arab part of society,” Tamra’s mayor, Mussa Abu Rumi, said. The reinforced “safe rooms” in new-build houses are an inferior alternative, as the fate of the Khatibs showed, and Abu Rumi said only 40% of Tamra residents even have those... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/15/they-just-see-you-as-an-arab-israels-palestinian-citizens-given-cursory-protection-from-attack

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Segregation is the act or process of separating individuals or groups based on characteristics such as race, class, or ethnicity, often resulting in unequal treatment and access to resources. It can occur through enforced laws or voluntary actions, leading to distinct living, educational, and social conditions for different groups.

State Sponsored Segregation is OPPRESSION and INJUSTICE

Segregation In The  1950s America 

The Ku Klux Klan burning a cross in Tennessee, 1948.  The Ku Klux Klan employed terror in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda

1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I HAVE A DREAM

"Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. 

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt..."

meanwhile

Israeli imposed Segregation in what had been historic Palestine 1948-2025 so far

Nakba means "Catastrophe" in Arabic. It refers to the destruction of Palestinian society in 1948 when approximately 750,000 Palestinians fled or were forced into exile by Israeli troops. Because the Palestinians were not Jewish, their presence and predominant ownership of the land were considered obstacles to the creation of a Jewish state. Their exodus, or Nakba, was already nearly half-complete by May 1948, when Israel declared its independence and the Arab states entered the fray.

In 1948 United Nations Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte pointed out that "IT WOULD BE AN OFFENCE AGAINST THE PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE IF THOSE INNOCENT VICTIMS [Palestinian men, women, & children] COULD NOT RETURN TO THEIR HOMES WHILE [Zionist] IMMIGRANTS FLOWED INTO PALESTINE TO TAKE THEIR PLACE"

2 years later

UNWRA the United Nations agency to provide education, healthcare, relief and social services to officially displaced Palestinian refugees began operations 1 May 1950.

75 year later & counting Israeli racism, injustice, supremacism, and violence is only becoming more entrenched and dangerous.

2025 ‘Branded’: Satellite images show Star of David carved into Gaza

The symbol, apparently created by Israeli tanks, can be seen from space in the Palestinian enclave.

2025 in Gaza: Palestinians re-entering their abandoned neighborhoods have found the bodies of loved ones crushed beneath the ruins of their homes.

Susan Muaddi Darraj: Palestinian Americans learned from the best... "I, Too" poem by Langton Hughes [written in 1926]

Susan Muaddi Darraj

Palestinian Americans learned from the best.

The calamitous toll the [Israeli] settlement project has taken...

"The calamitous toll the settlement project has taken on Palestinians—stolen land, pilfered water, divided cities—is well known. The burden borne by Israelis, though less familiar and certainly less extreme, has also been immense."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/24/rising-israel/?page=2

Rising Up in Israel

"In the discussion groups that took place every night inside the tent encampments, participants traded stories about struggling to meet their expenses even as they heard ministers boast that the economy was flourishing."

"Conspicuously absent from the protests this summer were some Israelis who don’t work hard for a living: members of the ultra-Orthodox community. Like Jewish settlers, they are the beneficiaries of government subsidies reserved for politically protected theological pursuits—in their case, full-time Torah study funded by the state"

An Israeli family in a camp set up as part of a protest against the high cost of housing, Tel Aviv, Israel, July 23, 2011