Spending on 2004 political campaign donor lists totaled $20 mil. In 2024, $214 mil. Campaigns now pay big bucks just to get info on people they can bombard with donation requests. Our “democracy” efficiently enriches list brokers. @adambonica.bsky.social data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-fundra...

Pope Leo Sunday: “Whoever serves wealth remains its slave." Added the pope: "Whoever seeks justice transforms wealth into the common good...whoever seeks domination turns the common good into prey for their own greed.” #inequality www.usccb.org/news/2025/us...

French business execs are billing a proposed tax on the assets of France’s deepest pockets as “insane” and “communist.” The “insanity”? The nation’s rich would face a whopping 2% annual levy on fortunes worth at least 100 million euros ($178 million). #taxes #inequality www.afr.com/world/europe...

Activists in the UK have launched an imaginative new campaign for a maximum wage. you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/it... For a deeper dive into the #maximumwage notion: www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Ca... @highpaycentre.bsky.social @equalitytrust.bsky.social

Making America Great Again: “Jared Kushner has a billionaire brother, a billionaire father-in-law and two brothers-in-law who appear destined to achieve that status. But now Kushner has become a billionaire in his own right.” #inequality

Tamika Middleton from @womensmarch.com on this past weekend’s Make Billionaires Pay demo in NY: Economic inequality, environmental degradation, and attacks on immigrants all stem from power imbalances that prioritize wealth accumulation over human dignity. rollingout.com/2025/09/21/m...

French billionaire Bernard Arnault, world’s 8th-richest man, is blasting economist Gabriel Zucman’s proposed annual 2% levy on French wealth over 100 million euros ($117 million) as an attempt “to destroy the French economy.” The proposal has 86% public approval. www.reuters.com/world/france...

NY mayoral race leader Zohran Mamdani’s proposal to place an additional 2% tax on New Yorkers earning over $1 million a year has the city’s richest “panicking and scrambling, trying to figure out how they can defeat Mamdani to keep their bottom line.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Elon Musk’s estranged daughter: “I don’t have a desire to be super-rich. I can afford food. I have friends, a shelter and some expendable income, which is nice and much more fortunate than most people my age in Los Angeles.” www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-ne...

How selfish must a person be, this hit Netflix series essentially asks us, to secretively purchase a personal escape hatch from the annihilation of humanity? #billionaires #democracy #inequality

What? The really really rich don’t truly cherish #art for art’s sake! In today’s ultra-rich circles, investing in crypto and AI is trumping fine art. One big-time art gallery has actually closed its doors. @theartnewspaper.bsky.social

Yesterday in NY, 25,000 marched past “Billionaire’s Row" to demonstrate against our billionaire agenda of tax cuts for the wealthy, handouts to Big Oil, and rampant #inequality. Over 160 other similar demos in cities across the U.S.

Bernie on Tesla’s new trillion-dollar-pay plan for Elon Musk: “Tesla is proposing a deal that could give Elon Musk $2 trillion in wealth, more than the bottom 59% of Americans combined. Does anybody in America think this is sane?” #inequality #billionaires www.benzinga.com/markets/tech...

Latest news from Mansion Global: San Diego’s plush La Jolla district has just seen a 13,000-sq-ft oceanfront manse close for a record $47 million. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the US of A... @centeronbudget.bsky.social #inequality #billionaires www.cbpp.org/charts/housi...

Top 1-percenters have captured 21.6 percent of global income growth over the past 40 years. Their incomes have jumped 218 times more than incomes of the world’s poorest 50 percent. @oxfaminternational.bsky.social www.equals.ink/p/elephants-...

Thanks, Jeff Bezos! At his Washington Post, another example of billionaire “genius”: During the first Trump term, the Post received roughly half the Google searches of the NY Times. Today: only about a tenth as many. www.natesilver.net/p/the-politi...

We can build “an alternative media structure that does not rely on the goodwill of the rich” via tax credits similar to the charitable contribution deduction. Everyone would have $100 or so to support the journalism they choose. #democracy @deanbaker13.bsky.social www.patreon.com/posts/lesson...

One by one, top execs at the the nation’s media giants — from CBS and Apple to Disney’s ABC — are falling into Trumpista line. The latest: “Amazon is currently making a feverishly unanticipated documentary about Melania Trump.” Her reward: at least $28 million. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/o...

If the pending Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act introduced by Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib had been law last year, Walmart, with a 5-yr average CEO-worker pay gap of 1,091 to 1, would have owed as much as $929 million in extra federal taxes. @ips-dc.org www.commondreams.org/opinion/pope...

Our U.S. plutonomy is driving prices higher “because price sensitivity is lower at the top.” Our plutonomy ”makes workers more expendable and layoffs more palatable because the ‘U.S. consumer’ isn’t as important as the wealthy consumer.” #inequality @prospect.org prospect.org/economy/2025...

Stacking the stock deck has paid off big for Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, the world’s 2nd-richest man. Oracle has spent billions buying back its shares. That has upped its share price — and Ellison’s personal Oracle stake from 23% of shares outstanding to 41%. www.financialexpress.com/world-news/u...

Larry Ellison, the world’s second-richest human being, already holds a major stake in CBS and Paramount. He may soon lord over CNN, HBO, and TikTok. #plutocracy #inequality www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/o...

High-tech remains the engine behind 2025’s biggest fortunes. Companies like Meta, Tesla, and Amazon have “minted some of the richest people in history.” #inequality #billionaires #plutocracy

How unequally has U.S. income been distributed since 1975? If that income had been distributed as equitably as income from 1945 to 1975, our bottom 90% would have pocketed $79 trillion more, some $32,000 more per worker in 2023 alone. @corbintrent.bsky.social www.commondreams.org/opinion/econ...

The breakdown of “Breakthrough Starshot”: A new look at “the perils of relying on the ultrarich to fund science: when the guy with the billions is ready to move on, the whole project is off.” @sarahscoles.bsky.social‬ @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-...

“I often hear the objection that corporations & billionaires do not agree on everything. This is true but beside the point...Across the board they do agree on what matters most—lower taxes, weaker regulation & the continued evisceration of unions.” www.weekendreading.net/p/shadows-an...

The proposed new $1-trillion Tesla pay package for Elon Musk comes “replete with smoke and mirrors, its benchmarks painstakingly tweaked to make them much more achievable than they appear on the surface.” @hiltzikm.bsky.social @latimes.com #inequality

“The ludicrous valuations of AI startups are predicated on the idea that this technology has the power to eliminate the very need for human labor...The AI boom could represent the most efficient upward redistribution of wealth in modern history.” #inequality www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

In 1992, after the USSR’s collapse, political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued that liberal democracy’s ascendancy had brought us to the “end of history.” History begged to differ. These days he’s writing about Elon Musk and western civilization’s implosion. www.persuasion.community/p/our-coming...

Pope Leo, in a new interview, reflects on the question of “why is the world so polarized?” He deems as a “very significant” cause the “continuously wider gap between the income levels of the working class and the money that the wealthiest receive.” #inequality #CEOpay cruxnow.com/vatican/2025...

In France, famed economist Gabriel Zucman’s proposed annual 2 percent tax on assets over 100 million euros — about $117 million — has strong legislative support. The tax would apply to roughly 1,800 households and generate up to 20 billion euros per year.

In France, famed economist Gabriel Zucman’s proposed annual 2 percent tax on assets over 100 million euros — about $117 million — has strong legislative support. The tax would apply to roughly 1,800 households and generate up to 20 billion euros per year.

The ‘progress’ to world's 1st #trillionaire 1987: 2 rich at $10 billion 1999: Bill Gates 1st to $100B 2017: Jeff Bezos 2nd to $100B 2025: Elon Musk now worth $419B link.cnbc.com/public/41504...

Worried about societal collapse? Understandable. But Cambridge’s Luke Kemp notes that past collapses have actually led to improved lives for average people. The reason: Past empires “were predatory, fueling enormous inequality and impoverishing the masses.” @cser.bsky.social

The higher corporate share prices rise, the higher goes corporate exec compensation. One way those execs can jack up their share prices: have their corporations buy back their own shares. These #buybacks used to be illegal. #CEOpay www.levernews.com/your-taxes-a...

Forbes has once again ranked America’s 400 richest. Some 49 of them — almost 1 of every 8 super rich in the top 400 — now hail from Florida. Their total Sunshine State net worth: $716 billion, up from a mere $605 billion in 2024. #inequality #billionaires www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2...

Giving workers a voice in corporate decision-making can improve their own — and the American public’s — experience of economic growth and democracy. @equitablegrowth.bsky.social @lenorepalladino.bsky.social #inequality equitablegrowth.org/to-restore-d...

Land of the free, home of the brave . . . and the spectacularly rich: Of the world's 15 richest #billionaires, only 1 doesn't call the USA home. #inequality www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/

A reflection on this week’s latest instance of U.S. political violence: Our social fabric has been ripping apart for a long time — and the avarice of America’s top corporate chiefs has been driving that ripping. #inequality @matthewstoller.bsky.social www.thebignewsletter.com/p/when-corpo...

The Equal Tax Act just introduced by Rep. Delia Ramirez would, among other key steps, limit the current lower preferential tax rate for long-term capital gains and dividends to incomes under $1 million. #inequality ramirez.house.gov/media/press-...

Back in 1982, America's richest needed fortunes worth at least $100 million to enter the Forbes 400. Today's threshold for richest-400 status: $3.8 billion. #inequality #billionaires www.forbes.com/sites/martin...

“A potential trillion-dollar pay package in a world where almost 700 million people live on less than $2.15 a day is obscene.” #inequality www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The typical U.S. household entered 2025 making no more income, after inflation, than the typical U.S. household collected in 2019. Meanwhile, the total number of U.S. #billionaires has jumped from 607 in 2019 to 902, as of earlier this year. #inequality www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

The noncompete clauses corporate execs stick into employment contracts ban workers from leaving to join other firms in the same field. Their goal: to suppress wages by preventing the free movement of labor that might create competition for their services. @prospect.org prospect.org/labor/2025-0...

In America’s middle-class mid-20th century, sports operated as “a sort of cultural public utility.” Fans could listen to and watch games for free and afford to see games in person. Things have changed. Oligarchy has changed them. @matthewstoller.bsky.social www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-r...

Signs with phrases like “why is there no maximum wage?” filled the line of march at last week’s Labor Day rally in Richmond. #inequality www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Ca... commonwealthtimes.org/2025/09/02/w...

In the UK, a movement for a new political party is building. Former Labour Party MP Zarah Sultana:: “People are desperate for a leftwing alternative that is not beholden to the interests of the billionaires and the super rich.” #inequality www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Norwegians can discuss tax issues with confidence “because they have access to all the right data.” In Norway, tax returns sit “in a database that all citizens can access.” #inequality #TooMuchPay www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

The latest in they-paved-paradise-and-put-up-a-parking-lot department: Trump wanted #billionaires Gates, Cook, and Zuckerberg to inaugurate his newly paved-over Rose Garden Thursday. But it rained, so GOP leaders had that dishonor last night. apnews.com/article/trum...

Crypto and private equity kingpins see fewer windfalls in their future unless they can convince average Americans that the speculative games they play amount to legitimate pension fund investments. Running to the speculators' rescue? Who else? Donald Trump. www.newsmax.com/stephenmoore...