Economy

( Otherwords.org ) – America’s wealthiest billionaires buy a national election at $100 a vote — and still make money. Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New York’s mayors since 1942, hosted billionaire Michael Bloomberg for three terms. The first of these terms began after Bloomberg, then the Republican candidate for mayor, spent an incredible […]

Brazil

Beef and Oil: Are Brazil’s Bolsonaro and Saudi’s MBS a Match Made in Heaven?

Tori Avila

By Vitoria Avila Fioravanti | – Sao Paulo (Special to Informed Comment) – Beef, oil and veiling and a murdered journalist have catapulted the burgeoning relationship between Brazil and the controversial Kingdom of Saudi Arabia into the headlines for the first time this fall, though the two countries have had formal diplomatic relations since 1968. […]

Banking

Is the Fed’s Agenda a Threat to Trump’s Reelection?

John Buell

(Special to Informed Comment) – President Trump recently reported on another one of those perfect conversations. Jerome Powell and he purportedly talked about interest rates and the importance of keeping them low to maintain a booming economy. Powell of course reported on no such conversation. In any case, however, the imagined conversation highlighted such issues […]

Inequality

Is it Time for a Billionaire Ban?

OtherWords

By Negin Owliaei | – The wealthiest Americans dominate our airwaves. Let’s hear from someone else for a change. Bill Gates wants you to know he pays taxes. “I’ve paid more than $10 billion in taxes. I’ve paid more than anyone in taxes,” Gates told journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. “But when you say I should […]

Environmentalism

Climate Crisis will Beggar Us: Big Oil needs to Pay for the Damage it Caused

Yes! Magazine

By Tamara Toles O’Laughlin and Bill McKibben | – (Yes! Magazine) – Climate change disproportionately affects poor people and people of color. They should be compensated for their suffering. This month in a Manhattan courthouse, New York State’s attorney general Letitia James argued that ExxonMobil should be held accountable for layers of lies about climate […]

Climate Crisis

How Big Oil Committed the Greatest Scam in History and Smeared Climate Science

Tomdispatch

By Naomi Oreskes | – (Tomdispatch.com) – It’s a tale for all time. What might be the greatest scam in history or, at least, the one that threatens to take history down with it. Think of it as the climate-change scam that beat science, big time. Scientists have been seriously investigating the subject of human-made […]

Inequality

We Know Exactly Where to Get the Money to Fix Inequality

Jim Hightower

By Jim Hightower | – (Otherwords) – Jesse Jackson ran a strong populist campaign for president in 1988, advocating bold new policies and programs to address inequality. This prompted establishment skeptics to scoff, “Where ‘ya gonna get the money?” It’s no secret where America’s wealth has gone in recent decades: upwards. Jackson answered directly: We’ll […]

Inequality

How Much in ‘Inequality Tax’ Are You Paying?

Sam Pizzigati

(Inequality.org) – The hidden burden America’s top-heavy distribution of income and wealth places on people of modest means What nation ranks as the world’s richest? A simple question to answer, right. Well, not so much, suggests the just-released tenth annual Global Wealth Report from the banking giant Credit Suisse. Everything turns out to depend on […]

Fossil Fuels

Fueling Global Heating: Our Tax System Rewards the Biggest Carbon Criminals

OtherWords

By Charlie Simmons | – ( Otherwords.org) – Last year, the biggest fossil fuel companies paid zero dollars in taxes — and actually received billions in rebates. By Charlie Simmons | October 16, 2019 Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who sparked student protests across the globe, had this to tell the UN General […]