More on Inequality

I was looking for a chart that Lawerence O'Donnel used in The Last Word last night, 11/20/2012. I didn't find it, but I did find this and appreciate the comments. I need to check out the link to the Hans Rosling video...I love his work.

Here's a TED Talk I might want to consider while I try to create my own.

Bernie is working his own petition to overturn Citizens United. Have you signed one?

Hacking Democracy is a film that every concerned citizen should watch.

A new report by the G20’s Financial Stability Board finds that the world’s “shadow banking” system has grown significantly and is now worth more than $67 trillion. The shadow banking system is a largely unregulated, debt-driven market for complex and often risky financial instruments. Since 2002, the shadow banking system has nearly tripled in size and is today worth roughly half of all bank holdings in the world. It’s also bigger than the entire global GDP.

At $23 trillion, the United States has the world’s biggest shadow banking system. This is what’s replaced good ol’ manufacturing and the creation of actual wealth in the United States. Now we have an economy dependent on banksters manipulating money. We must rein in Wall Street before it’s too late with new regulations to turn banking back into the boring and useful industry it used to be. Otherwise, we could be heading toward another financial catastrophe very soon.  - Thom Hartmann

and Poly added this farther down the page..."Global dervative bets now approach $1,000 trillion. Not enough money on the planet to bail that one. The entire planet only produces $47 trillion per year in economic activity"

I've written about this before, but finding good sources for these figures can be hard to find.....but it is getting easier...Global Research has this article and I don't know who Jutia Group is, but they've written about it. Washington's Blog has a well written entry on the subject and it looks like the site deserves some more attention.

There was recently a fire in a Bangledesh textile factory, horribly reminisent to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire that illustrates the need for greater international cooperation for worker rights and protections.

So here we are with corporate profits at an all time high, wages at a low and corporate media as shallow as they can be. The Mondragon corporation is an example of an alternative corporate structure.

Would it help to deny Congress a paycheck or could they simply outlast us? They're mostly rich guys anyhow. Not enough people really see the big picture or hear the dirty truth that Crystinia Freeland speaks. That's why I keep plugging away with IA.

Thanks to Mother Jones and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities we have a better idea how much we really spend on the non-working poor. How many people fall into that category?

For those who might like charts as much as I do, here are some concerning wealth inequality.