Rich getting richer: Richest 400 Americans’ net worth jumps 13% The net worth of the richest Americans grew by 13 per cent in the past year to $1.7-trillion (U.S.), Forbes magazine said on Wednesday, and a familiar cast of characters once again populated the top of the magazine’s annual list of the U.S. uber-elite, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison and the Koch brothers. The average net worth of the 400 wealthiest Americans rose to a record $4.2-billion, the magazine said. Collectively, this group’s net worth is the equivalent of one-eighth of the entire U.S. economy, which stood at $13.56-trillion in real terms according to the latest government data. Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft Corp., topped the list for the 19th year in a row with $66-billion, up $7-billion from a year earlier. The ranks of the top five were unchanged from a year earlier. Two notable names dropped from the top 10, however. The disappointing stock market debut of Facebook Inc also took a toll on the fortune of its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. 1. 2.
Income Inequality and the Death of Trickledown By Hugh, who is a long-time commenter at Naked Capitalism. Originally published at Corrente. On September 12, 2012, the Census issued its report on Income, Poverty, and Healthcare Coverage in the United States: 2011. While the full report has some nice charts, one that was conspicuously missing was on income inequality. The data for such a chart was in the tables, and so I was able to construct the chart above from them. One feature that jumps out at you are how relatively flat mean income has been for the bottom 80% over the last 45 years and how much it has grown for the top 20%, from an already high baseline. If you look at the far left, in 1967, the income difference between the quintiles of the bottom 80% was remarkably similar, less than $17,000 between each group ($16,679 between the 1st (lowest quintile) and 2nd; $15,572 between the 2nd and 3rd; and $16,631 between the 3rd and 4th). What is interesting is that the mean income of the top 20% increased $73,100 from 1967 to 2011.
Free access to British scientific research within two years | Science The government is to unveil controversial plans to make publicly funded scientific research immediately available for anyone to read for free by 2014, in the most radical shakeup of academic publishing since the invention of the internet. Under the scheme, research papers that describe work paid for by the British taxpayer will be free online for universities, companies and individuals to use for any purpose, wherever they are in the world. In an interview with the Guardian before Monday's announcement David Willetts, the universities and science minister, said he expected a full transformation to the open approach over the next two years. The move reflects a groundswell of support for "open access" publishing among academics who have long protested that journal publishers make large profits by locking research behind online paywalls. "This will take time to build up, but within a couple of years we should see this fully feeding through."
Economic Policy - The Reagan Years Lessons in Reaganomics "He knows less about the budget than any president in my lifetime. He can't even carry on a conversation about the budget. It's an absolute and utter disgrace." --House Speaker Tip O'Neill, after a meeting with Reagan, November 23, 1981 "For the last 30 years he's been in a dream world.... "Reagan, who more than any president in history railed against government benefits and spending, set the standard for all members of his administration. "At his seventh press conference, President Reagan...responds to a question about the 17% black unemployment rate by pointing out that 'in this time of great unemployment,' Sunday's paper had '24 full pages of...employers looking for employees,' though most of the jobs available--computer operator, for example, or cellular immunologist--require special training, for which his administration has cut funds by over 30%." "The Agriculture Department [under Reagan proposes] cutting the size of school lunches.... "Mr.
Raise Taxes on Rich to Reward True Job Creators: Nick Hanauer Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- It is a tenet of American economic beliefs, and an article of faith for Republicans that is seldom contested by Democrats: If taxes are raised on the rich, job creation will stop. Trouble is, sometimes the things that we know to be true are dead wrong. For the larger part of human history, for example, people were sure that the sun circles the Earth and that we are at the center of the universe. It doesn’t, and we aren’t. The conventional wisdom that the rich and businesses are our nation’s “job creators” is every bit as false. I’m a very rich person. Even so, I’ve never been a “job creator.” That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. Theory of Evolution When businesspeople take credit for creating jobs, it is like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. It is unquestionably true that without entrepreneurs and investors, you can’t have a dynamic and growing capitalist economy.
Robin Hood Airport tweet bomb joke man wins case 27 July 2012Last updated at 08:07 ET Paul Chambers: "I want to move on, get a job and have a holiday" A man found guilty of sending a menacing tweet threatening to blow up an airport has won a challenge against his conviction. Paul Chambers, 28, of Northern Ireland, was found guilty in May 2010 of sending a "menacing electronic communication". He was living in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, when he tweeted that he would blow up nearby Robin Hood Airport when it closed after heavy snow. After a hearing at the High Court in London his conviction was quashed. 'Obvious joke' Mr Chambers said later: "I am relieved, vindicated - it is ridiculous it ever got this far. Continue reading the main story Analysis Clive ColemanBBC News legal correspondent This appeal was all about whether Paul Chambers' tweet, made in frustration that Robin Hood airport was closed, and threatening to blow it sky high if the problem wasn't sorted out, was a 'menacing' message and therefore criminal. 'Vindication and victory'
poormansmedia : #Toronto #CFRB has been floating... Finally, A Rich American Destroys The Fiction That Rich People Create The Jobs 60 Minutes America's real job-creators...who can't afford to create any jobs. In the war of rhetoric that has developed in Washington as both sides blame each other for our economic mess, one argument has been repeated so often that many people now regard it as fact: Rich people create the jobs. Specifically, entrepreneurs and investors, when incented by low taxes, build companies and create millions of jobs. And these entrepreneurs and investors, therefore, the argument goes, can solve our nation's huge unemployment problem — if only we cut taxes and regulations so they can be incented to build more companies and create more jobs. In other words, by even considering raising taxes on "the 1%," we are considering destroying the very mechanism that makes our economy the strongest and biggest in the world: The incentive for entrepreneurs nd investors to build companies in the hope of getting rich and, in the process, creating millions of jobs. She'd like to create jobs. And Hanauer explains why.
MILLIONAIRE'S ISLAND: A Simple Example Of Why 'Rich People' Don't Create Jobs wikipedia commons An unspoiled wilderness with no poor people. Paradise! As everyone in this country keeps blaming everyone else for our high unemployment rate, one assertion gets repeated so often that it is now regarded as fact: Rich people create jobs. Specifically, the argument goes, entrepreneurs and investors create jobs. So if we want to create more jobs, the argument continues, we need to cut taxes on entrepreneurs and investors--to increase their incentive to create jobs. Now, I'm an entrepreneur, and Business Insider employs about 75 people, up from zero four years ago. Unfortunately, as I explained in detail here, this assertion is wrong: Entrepreneurs and investors actually don't create jobs, at least not by themselves. Without our generous readers and sponsors and dedicated team, all the jobs I "created" at BI would immediately cease to exist (including mine). To illustrate this, let's run through a simple example. Let's allow the 1% to take their savings with them. wikipedia