Winner Take All Politics

Another book and author about the income gap (euphemism).

Unemployment isn’t just blighting the lives of millions, it’s undermining America’s future. Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman's column,  Fears and failure, explains once more the need for higher taxes on the wealthy and the hypocrisy of those who claims to care about the deficit but don't want any tax increase.

Do the wealthy flee income taxes? No

Two recent studies  in New England and New Jersey show increased or newly created state income taxes did not male local millionaires move.

Executive Paywatch

Executive Paywatch is a site managed by AFl-CIO. You can sort the selection by state.

Patriotic millionaires in Washington State?

On May 4, Seattle's Patriotic Millionaire Judy Piggot invited a few wealthy friends members of Responsible Wealth, including Bill Gates Sr to talk about tax fairness. What's next?
There are now 2 people from Washington State who signed the patriotic millionaires appeal:
Judy Piggot (Seattle) and Dal Lamagna (Poulsbo). Another one is Arul Menezes (Sammamish). How many more millionaires are there in WA?

Rising Wealth Inequality: should we care?

Rising Wealth Inequality: Should We Care? is the title of an article by Harvard university Michael Norton, published in the New York Times on March 22, 2011. It refers to the survey he coauthored with Dan Ariely of Duke University, Building A Better America: One Wealth Quintile At A Time (pdf). While today the richest 20% own 84%, a majority of Americans would prefer a distribution where the richest 20% own 32%! The survey also showed the public had no idea about the real present distribution:

"Respondents vastly underestimated the actual level of wealth inequality in the United States, believing that the wealthiest quintile held about 59% of the wealth when the actual number is closer to
84%. More interesting, respondents constructed ideal wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution, reporting a desire for the top quintile to own just 32% of the wealth." That's about the situation in Sweden.

The people's budget

Paul Krugman's column explains (once more) why raising taxes for the wealthiest should be an evidence, except if one wants to return to the 1930s or further. The people's budget is produced by the Progressive Caucus.