Some (qualified) better news on the forced cashless society:
Cash Access UK (set up by the major banks) has committed to have opened 100 community banking hubs by the end of the year. This hubs offer joint services across the constituent banks.
It remains to be seen whether this deal with some of the companies about lack of banking services (including access to cash)... and from a local point of view, when one turns up in the Lune Valley's banking desert.
Holly Pester's short novel The Lodgers (2024), is a timely mediation on the unanchoredness of the peripatetic life of the renter/lodger. At times elliptical, with two narratives whose relations remains unsettled, this is a book which offers a real feeling for a key element of modern life; moving from one lodging/rental to another. While at time wry, it remains elegiac in its approach to tenant's despair & longing.
Here's a piece from BMJ, looking at social determinants of heath suggesting the crisis in health is not one of perception, but a wider problem with how our health is impacted by the social structures we encounter.
The authors conclude: 'A common response is that we cannot afford such action [on inequality & health] —we argue, we cannot afford inaction'!
Health inequality compounds social inequality which makes health worse
Ha ha... once again like Lucy & Charlie Brown, the BoE holds interest rates steady, but offers the prospect of a cut in the future... just whisk that ball away Mr. Bailey (each time).
I'm sure they'll eventually cut the rate but the sado-monetarists need more 'evidence' before they do;
but not evidence that inflation is easing, whatever they say; rather they want evidence that workers have been properly tamed/beaten down, that they/we have been disciplined!
"Leaders of the slaveholding South called the Declaration [of Independence] 'a most pernicious falsehood.' South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun called the very idea of equal rights a 'false doctrine.'..
"The influential 'second' Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s was anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish as well as anti-Black, which was why, unlike the original Klan, it flourished outside the South.. Christian nationalism has been a powerful force throughout America’s history" https://wapo.st/3QonhLY
— #GiftArticle
"There is no reason to doubt that he [Jamie Dimon] spoke for many of the richest Americans and for other corporate leaders. There was no outcry among them.. They know that Trump’s White working-class followers don’t have to be paid off economically because most care chiefly about the culture wars. Trump can still cut taxes and reduce other obstacles to corporate profit.. Trump will want to make deals for himself and his family, as he did in his first term."
— #inequality#corporations
Boyd said: “I started out six years ago talking about the right to a healthy environment having the capacity to bring about systemic and transformative changes. But this powerful human right is up against an even more powerful force in the global economy, a system that is absolutely based on the exploitation of people and nature. And unless we change that fundamental system, then we’re just re-shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.”
>Boyd said: “There’s no place in the climate negotiations for fossil-fuel companies. There is no place in the plastic negotiations for plastic manufacturers. It just absolutely boggles my mind that anybody thinks they have a legitimate seat at the table.
>In his final interview before handing over the special rapporteur mandate, Boyd said he struggles to makes sense of the world’s collective indifference to the suffering being caused by preventable environmental harms.
>over 40 million people have died of air pollution since I became special rapporteur in 2018, yet I just can’t get people to care.
>“I can’t get people to bat an eyelash. It’s like there’s something wrong with our brains that we can’t understand just how grave this situation is"
>"If we don’t have a living, healthy planet Earth, then all the other rights are just words on paper.”
I can only agree ... without a livable planet and a stable biosphere, everything else is for nought, as "home" is then unlivable.
Across Europe countries are suffering various housing crisis.... on the one hand it does suggest this is a wider problem than just a UK-specific policy problem.
However, on the other, this plausibly looks like a factor in the rise of the new/hard Right.
There are many aspects to these crises including loss of public housing but the treatment of housing as an asset class rather than homes for living in, is playing a major negative role.
Scott Galloway (NY Stern School) sums up the misconception(s) the rich have about their success (which they try to make us believe too):
'What I’ve found is that the majority of people’s success is not their fault. And I think something that plagues people, especially tech bros, is they conflate luck with talent'!
Its also the networks they're embeded in, he notes, that lead them to quickly be presented with (new) opportunities.
Why societies grow more fragile and vulnerable to collapse as time passes
4.25.24 by Luke Kemp and BBC colleagues,Features correspondent
"...The ageing trend was there even when we excluded dynasties.
...Our findings are supported by promising studies on "critical slowing down". Before a complex system undergoes a large-scale shift in structure, or a "tipping point", it often begins to recover more slowly from disturbances. The ageing human body is similar: injuries can take a longer toll when you're older...
The next steps will be to investigate what fosters societal longevity, and what causes growing vulnerability. States could be losing resilience over time due to variety of factors. Growing inequality, extractive institutions, and conflict between elites could heighten social friction over time. Environmental degradation could undermine the ecosystems that polities depend on..."
Sad to see the Guardian giving a platform to this bleating 'tycoon' claiming him & his rich chums will be leaving the UK due to it 'punitive' tax rates...
I'd expect a piece like this to be in the Torygraph... the only defence is that they expect people to see through this rich-person propaganda, but with no critical perspective on his claims or more balanced depiction of the tax system included, that a difficult case to make convincingly.
As an Indian I am not surprised to learn from Robert Reich's post that the top 0.1% of Americans control $20 trillion in wealth and the bottom 50% control $3.7 trillion in wealth.
I have been haplessly observing the brutality of inequality since my childhood while putting my best efforts to remain on the other side.
Our estimates suggest that inequality declined post-independence till the early 1980s, after which it began rising and has skyrocketed since the early 2000s. Trends of top income and wealth shares track each other over the entire period of our study. Between 2014-15 and 2022-23, the rise of top-end inequality has been particularly pronounced in terms of wealth concentration. By 2022-23, top 1% income and wealth shares (22.6% and 40.1%) are at their highest historical levels and India’s top 1% income share is among the very highest in the world.
In other words, the ‘Billionaire Raj’ headed by India’s modern bourgeoisie is now more unequal than the British Raj headed by the colonialist forces. It is unclear how long such inequality levels can sustain without major social and political upheaval. While there is no reason to believe income and wealth inequality will slow down by itself, historical evidence suggests that it can be kept in check via policy.
The root cause may be absence of appropriate policies through legislation.
The authors of the above mentioned paper lament that:> In line with earlier work, we find suggestive evidence that the Indian income tax system might be regressive when viewed from the lens of net wealth. We emphasize that the quality of economic data in India is notably poor and has seen a decline recently. It is therefore likely that our results represent a lower bound to actual inequality levels.
As an Indian I am not surprised to learn from Robert Reich's post that the top 0.1% of Americans control $20 trillion in wealth and the bottom 50% control $3.7 trillion in wealth.
I have been haplessly observing the brutality of inequality since my childhood while putting my best efforts to remain on the other side.
Our estimates suggest that inequality declined post-independence till the early 1980s, after which it began rising and has skyrocketed since the early 2000s. Trends of top income and wealth shares track each other over the entire period of our study. Between 2014-15 and 2022-23, the rise of top-end inequality has been particularly pronounced in terms of wealth concentration. By 2022-23, top 1% income and wealth shares (22.6% and 40.1%) are at their highest historical levels and India’s top 1% income share is among the very highest in the world.
In other words, the ‘Billionaire Raj’ headed by India’s modern bourgeoisie is now more unequal than the British Raj headed by the colonialist forces. It is unclear how long such inequality levels can sustain without major social and political upheaval. While there is no reason to believe income and wealth inequality will slow down by itself, historical evidence suggests that it can be kept in check via policy.
The root cause may be absence of appropriate policies through legislation.
The authors of the above mentioned paper lament that:> In line with earlier work, we find suggestive evidence that the Indian income tax system might be regressive when viewed from the lens of net wealth. We emphasize that the quality of economic data in India is notably poor and has seen a decline recently. It is therefore likely that our results represent a lower bound to actual inequality levels.