Richest 1% may own half of global wealth by 2016 The combined wealth of the world's richest 1 percent could overtake that of the other 99 percent by 2016 , according to a report by Oxfam published Monday, as billionaires, politicians and business leaders gather in Davos for the annual World Economic Forum. In a study called "Wealth: Having it all and wanting more." the international charity warned that a sharp rise in inequality was holding back the fight against global poverty at a time when 1 in 9 people do not have enough to eat and more than a billion people live on less than $1.25 a day. © Provided by CNBC Of the remaining 52 percent of global wealth in 2014 , about 46 percent was owned by the rest of the richest fifth of the world's population. The other 80 percent of the world share d around 5.5 percent, according to Oxfam. Rising inequality has moved into the spotlight in recent years amid concerns that living standards have been hit by slow economic recovery in the wake of the global financial crisis.
Federal Reserve Act Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve Act (ch. 6, 38 Stat. 251, enacted December 23, 1913, 12 U.S.C. ch. 3) is an Act of Congress that created and set up the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States of America, and granted it the legal authority to issue Federal Reserve Notes, now commonly known as the U.S. Dollar, and Federal Reserve Bank Notes as legal tender. The Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. The Act[edit] The Federal Reserve Act created a system of private and public entities; there were to be at least eight, and no more than 12, private regional Federal Reserve banks. With the passing of the Federal Reserve Act, Congress required that all nationally chartered banks become members of the Federal Reserve System. Background[edit] Central banking has made various institutional appearances throughout the history of the United States. The First Bank of United States[edit] The 2nd Bank of the United States[edit] Subsequent Amendments[edit]
Drought may soon yield mysterious WWII-era bomber beneath Lake Mead Water levels are at their lowest at Nevada's Lake Mead leading the National Park Sevice to allow permits for recreational diving at the site of a downed B-29 bomber. (National Park Service) The drought that has parched much of the southwest may soon yield a mystery that has rested at the bottom of Nevada's Lake Mead for nearly 70 years, a B-29 bomber that went down carrying a top-secret missile defense system that may have actually caused the crash. The B-29 bomber, also known as the "Superfortress" and the same model as the storied Enola Gay and Bockscar, the planes that dropped atomic bombs on Japan, crashed in 1948 as it flew over the giant lake testing a sun-powered missile guidance system. For decades, it lay at a depth of 300 feet in the man-made lake that was formed by construction of the Hoover Dam. "There's a lot of history there. "It would be amazing," Curtis Snaper, of Sin City Scuba in nearby Las Vegas, told FoxNews.com.
Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Sixteenth Amendment (Amendment XVI) to the United States Constitution allows the Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states or basing it on the United States Census. This amendment exempted income taxes from the constitutional requirements regarding direct taxes, after income taxes on rents, dividends, and interest were ruled to be direct taxes in the court case of Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895). The amendment was adopted on February 3, 1913. Text The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. Other Constitutional provisions regarding taxes Article I, Section 2, Clause 3: Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers...[1] Article I, Section 8, Clause 1: Article I, Section 9, Clause 4: Adoption
Congress could soon allow pension plans to cut benefits for current retirees Congress could soon allow the benefits of current retirees to be cut as part of an agreement to address the fiscal distress confronting some of the nation’s 1,400 multi-employer pension plans. Several unions and pension advocates opposing the move, which would be unprecedented, say that permitting financially strapped plans to cut retiree benefits would violate the central promise of traditional pensions: that they would provide a defined benefit for life. “This proposal would devastate retirees and their surviving spouses,” said Karen Friedman, executive vice president of the Pension Rights Center, a nonprofit group. “The proposal would also torpedo basic protections of the federal private pension law . . . that states that once benefits are earned, they can’t be cut back.” Several of the nation’s large multi-employer pension plans are on a course that would leave them insolvent within a decade. In recent weeks, negotiations over the proposal have heated up on Capitol Hill. Michael A.
Fractional reserve banking Fractional-reserve banking is the practice whereby a bank holds reserves in an amount equal to only a portion of the amount of its customers' deposits to satisfy potential demands for withdrawals. Reserves are held at the bank as currency, or as deposits reflected in the bank's accounts at the central bank. Because bank deposits are usually considered money in their own right, fractional-reserve banking permits the money supply to grow to a multiple (called the money multiplier) of the underlying reserves of base money originally created by the central bank.[1][2] Fractional-reserve banking is the current form of banking in all countries worldwide.[3] History[edit] Fractional-reserve banking predates the existence of governmental monetary authorities and originated many centuries ago in bankers' realization that generally not all depositors demand payment at the same time.[4] How it works[edit] In most legal systems, a bank deposit is not a bailment. Economic function[edit] Formula[edit]
Clinton has received $16 million in post-presidency benefits March 7, 2015: Former President Bill Clinton speaks at the Future of Energy session at a university conference sponsored by the Clinton Global Initiative in Coral Gables, Fla. (AP) Former President Bill Clinton has received nearly $16 million in taxpayer funds since leaving the White House, covering everything from his pension to personnel to benefits -- and renewing questions over how much taxpayers really should spend on ex-presidents who make millions after leaving office. A new Politico report and analysis examined the payments since he left office in 2001, and claimed it amounts to more than any other ex-president has received. Meanwhile, Politico points out, Clinton has a personal annual income that beats all the other living former presidents. His $15 million advance -- then a record -- for his 2008 memoir was just a sliver of his earnings. From 2001 to 2014 Clinton has received a roughly $200,000 annual pension (all presidents received the same level of pension in 2014).
A Privatised Money Supply: Modern Banking and the Fractional Reserve System Philosophy Lovers! Click Here A Privatised Money Supply Modern Banking and the Fractional Reserve System [Figures and illustrations were current when written in 2002.] Do you know where the bank gets the $160,000 for your mortgage? How did the banks gain this oppressive power of charging interest on mere computer entries? Now that our money supply has been essentially privatized, how can we free ourselves from this sly form of economic tyranny? 1) A government can lend interest-free money into existence by borrowing from its own bank, The BoC, or, it can borrow interest-bearing money into existence by borrowing from privately owned banks. 2) A government that borrows with interest from private banks, when it can create its own interest-free money, is a government of idiots or thieves. Unfortunately, the human mind finds it easier to believe a lie it’s heard a hundred times before than to believe a truth it’s hearing for the first time. Thomas Jefferson William Lyon Mackenzie King
How Walmart's Bosses Get Rich Off Welfare Abuse | Carl Gibson Forget about the guy at the grocery store using food stamps to buy lobster. Walmart, the world's largest retail company, is even more dependent on government welfare so it can make jaw-droppingly obscene profits. In fact, government handouts are the main reason Walmart is so profitable, and the billion-dollar corporation's business model is centered around the continued dependence on social safety net programs. Paying Workers Poverty Wages When Walmart pays its workers so little that they need food stamps to survive, they're also investing in a steady profit stream. Employee wages are so low that during the last holiday season, one Walmart in Ohio held a food drive for its own employees so they could have a decent Thanksgiving dinner. Walmart's insistence on paying its workers so little is especially despicable, given that the company could pay workers much more without even changing any of its prices. Excessively Compensating Executives
How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich | Politics News The nation is still recovering from a crushing recession that sent unemployment hovering above nine percent for two straight years. The president, mindful of soaring deficits, is pushing bold action to shore up the nation's balance sheet. Cloaking himself in the language of class warfare, he calls on a hostile Congress to end wasteful tax breaks for the rich. "We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share," he thunders to a crowd in Georgia. Such tax loopholes, he adds, "sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary – and that's crazy." Preacherlike, the president draws the crowd into a call-and-response. The crowd, sounding every bit like the protesters from Occupy Wall Street, roars back: "MORE!" The year was 1985. Today's Republican Party may revere Reagan as the patron saint of low taxation. Then something strange happened.