Richest Americans’ Income Doubled, Tax Rate Decreased

According to recent IRS data, from 2000 to 2006 the income of the 400 richest Americans doubled, but their tax rate fell by a third to only 17.2 percent.

The drop in the tax rate for the richest Americans is due mainly to ex-President Bush’s push to lower the capital gains tax to 15 percent in 2003.

As pointed out in my post Bob Edgar Stresses Poverty, Bush also drastically increased government spending, leaving even more government debt for working class taxpayers to pay since the rich people’s tax rate was decreased. In other words, Bush increased the total amount that the taxpayers have to pay by increasing government spending, but he changed the proportions so that rich people pay less of it while the rest of us pay more of it.

I also ask you to remember that the richest people in America pay less in taxes than their secretaries in percentage of income.

I think those policies of the Bush Administration and the mostly Republican legislature contributed to the current economic crisis. Worse yet, many politicians actually continue to propose the same policies as a solution to the problem. For example, Republican politicians are actually suggesting changing the “stimulus package” to include more Bush-type tax cuts for the rich while eliminating tax credits for the working class.

Please tell us your thoughts about this topic at the Philosophy of Politics Online Forum in threads such as this one.

An Analogy of the Politics of World Poverty

In the discussion Food for Some, Not for All on the Philosophy Forums, I made this post. In that post, I argued that the problem in our society causing world hunger and poverty is that control over natural resources has been unfairly distributed through the use of deception and violence.

It is generally another rendition of the same point I often make on this blog in posts such as The Nature of the Current Food Crisis, Oppression, Capital and Poverty, and many of my other favorite posts.

But I do especially like the fun analogy I made:

Let’s say I claimed to own all the air in the world and threatened to imprison or kill anyone who breathed the air without my permission. I could get you guys to all work like slaves for me for barely anything because the desperation caused by your poverty would make you the equivalent of sweatshop workers. So I would gain control not only over the air in the world but also the labor. And I’m sure many people would die from lack of oxygen. I would benefit from keeping such a system, but everybody else would benefit from changing it. In that example, I represent the ruling class (a.k.a. the upper class or just the wealthy); my desperate workers represent the working class; those who die from lack of oxygen represent the poorest of us; and the air represents natural resources, namely land, water and the machinery passed down from previous generations.

Please do check out the whole forum post and join the forum discussion.

Women’s Pay Key to Child Poverty

Recent research in the UK has shown that women’s low pay has huge implications on child poverty.

I think we can apply those findings to most countries. Throughout the world, women both tend to have most of the child raising responsibilities and tend to receive lower pay. For example, many single mothers work hard at multiple jobs and still do not earn enough to support themselves and their children. That means the mothers often do not have enough time to raise their children and do not have enough money to provide their children with quality education since the mothers can neither afford private school nor afford to live in an area with quality public schools.

To break the poverty trap, I believe we must ensure that single mothers and all parents get paid enough to properly raise their children.

What do you think? How do you suggest we raise the pay of women and ensure parents can afford to raise their children? Post your responses and other ideas about the topic in the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.

$30 Billion a Year Would Eradicate World Hunger

The ENS did a great job reporting about the opening of the High-level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy.

In my opinion, the most noteworthy part is when Dr. Jacques Diouf, the director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, pointed out the shameful contrast between what we waste and how relatively little it would take to eradicate world hunger. After pointing out the trillions spent yearly on militarism and the billions of dollars worth of food wasted, Dr. Diouf asked, “How can we explain to people of good sense and good faith that it was not possible to find US$30 billion a year to enable 862 million hungry people to enjoy the most fundamental of human rights: the right to food and thus the right to life?”

Resources that could go towards feeding the hungry and eradicating poverty are spent on expensive and needlessly destructive endeavors such as the occupation of Iraq and the war on drugs like marijuana. I could never describe how intensely that upsets me.

Poverty Book of the Day: The Support Economy

Today’s poverty-related book of the day is The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and The Next Episode of Capitalism by James Maxmin and Shoshana Zuboff. Here is the overview:

“Business is broken and can’t be fixed because today’s ‘managerial’ capitalism has grown hopelessly out of touch with the people it should be serving. The Support Economy explores this chasm between people and corporations. On one side are companies stuck in a century-old business model. On the other is a new society of individuals no longer content to bend to the old adversarial rules of commerce. Instead, they seek relationships of advocacy and trust that provide support for their complex lives. Unlocking the frustrated needs of today’s new individuals can unleash the next great wave of wealth creation. This will require radically new approaches to commerce and capitalism. The Support Economy provides a profound new framework for these innovations. It is an urgent call to action for consumers, entrepreneurs, investors, corporate visionaries, mavericks, public officials, and every citizen who cares about the future.”

You can discuss that book or recommend other books related to poverty, economics or humanitarianism in my World Hunger and Poverty Forums.

The Nature of the Current Food Crisis

I appreciate that the current food crisis has gained a lot of media coverage lately. Today, I want to clarify part of the nature of the current food crisis that I think some people may not realize.

We do not actually have a shortage of land, food or other resources. As I often stress on this blog, the world has more than enough food to feed everyone. The world has more than enough resources to provide food, clothes, clean water, shelter, education and healthcare to everyone. The problem is not a lack of resources such as land and food. The problem is the way our society distributes and uses those resources.

Whether we like it or not, we currently live in a capitalist society in which resources–including natural resources–go to the people willing and able to pay the most. The groups of people who want land and other resources for luxuries or bio-fuel production are willing and able to spend more for those resources than the people who need the resources for food and such.

Basically, I see two general methods of solving that problem.

Firstly, we need to find a way to alleviate and hopefully eradicate poverty so that all people have enough money to buy what they need by outbidding other people who want the resources for luxuries.

Secondly, we need to find a new and fairer way to distribute resources, namely natural resources such as land, water, oil and so forth. As I have said before, I believe we can end poverty by ensuring that all people have an equal right to natural resources. I believe most of the cost of products such as food come from the high cost of obtaining usage rights of the natural resources used in their production.

Poor people generally are not poor because they lack labor or the willingness to work hard to get what they need. What leaves them poor, despite their abundance of labor, is generally their lack of rights to the usage and control of natural resources. In our current society, money and capital represents that ownership or ability to own natural resources. So we either need to ensure that all people have enough money and capital to not be poor, or we need to change the fact that people need money and capital to get rights to the usage and control of natural resources. Of course, we can work on doing both.

What do you think? How would you explain the nature of the food crisis, and what solutions do you see? Answer those questions and post your comments about the above blog post at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.