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+5 +1
To Fight Inequality, Tax Land
In the lasting debate over Thomas Piketty’s book on outsized returns on capital, a significant fact has been obscured: If you exclude land and housing, capital has not risen as a share of the U.S. economy. If you're surprised, you're not the only one. Intuition suggests this capital-output ratio should be higher today than it was in the early 1900s. Yet, in the U.S., capital excluding land and housing has been roughly constant as a share of the economy since the mid-1950s, and is lower today than at the turn of the 20th century.
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+16 +1
Cutting the Gordian Knot of Technological Unemployment with Unconditional Basic Income
Invisible Sheep, the Missing Right, and the Return of Common Wealth. In the opening of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, viewers are shown a historic moment in time where primitive man used the first tool. It was a bone, and used like a club, it allowed a physically weaker group to overpower a physically stronger group.
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+15 +1
Top 20 Percent Of Americans 'Hoard The American Dream'
There's a hidden force shaping our politics, says author Richard Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and it's hidden in plain sight. In his forthcoming book, Dream Hoarders, Reeves argues that the top 20 percent of Americans — those with six-figure incomes and above — dominate the best schools, live in the best-located homes and pass on the best futures to their kids.
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+15 +1
End of coal: Failure to see it coming will hurt miners most
Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement was sometimes presented as the president putting coal workers first. But the history of coal mining transitions, both in Europe and the US, tells us that failing to anticipate before change comes often finishes badly for workers.
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+29 +1
Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart
Many Americans can’t remember anything other than an economy with skyrocketing inequality, in which living standards for most Americans are stagnating and the rich are pulling away. It feels inevitable. But it’s not.
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+28 +1
The wealth gap in the US is worse than in Kenya
Kenya has been called an unsafe place for tourists because of frequent violent crimes. Former president Barack Obama said in a speech that it's time for the country to "change habits" because "too often here in Kenya … corruption is tolerated." But there is at least one thing the country gets better than the United States: Income equality.
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+4 +1
The World's Poorest People Are Getting Richer Faster than Anyone Else | Alexander C.R. Hammond
Last Tuesday marked the 25th anniversary of the United Nations’ International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The date intentionally coincides with the 30th anniversary of the Call to Action, which saw the French anti-poverty campaigner Father Joseph Wresinski ask the international community, in front of 100,000 Parisians, to “strive to eradicate extreme poverty”.
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+12 +1
The U.S. Isn’t Prepared for the Next Recession
Maybe it will start with a failed initial public offering, followed by the revelation of widespread fraud in Silicon Valley. Perhaps energy prices will spike, sapping the finances of anyone who drives a car to work. Maybe a foreign crisis will cause a credit crunch, or President Trump will spark a global trade war. A recession might seem like a distant concern, with the latest data showing that the current, extraordinarily economic long expansion just keeps humming along.
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+17 +1
Retail is suffering because the middle classes have lost $1,355 trillion in income since 1970
Nowadays, there are a lot of articles being written about the collapse of retail in the USA. Some people blame Amazon and online shopping, but that is only a trivial part of the problem. $1,355,610,000,000 of consumer spending is missing from the demand side of USA spending, and that should be kept in mind whenever you read an article about retail going through hell. The big boom in retail in the mid-20th century was thanks a strong middle class. Conversely, the collapse of income of the middle quintiles of income must lead to a contraction of retail. Consider these charts:
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+26 +1
Corporate America Is Suppressing Wages for Many Workers
Even after eight years of economic recovery and steady private-sector job growth, wages for most Americans have hardly budged. It is tempting to think that wage stagnation is intractable, a result of long-term trends, like automation and globalization, that government is powerless to do anything about.
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+14 +1
Credit card debt surpasses $1 trillion in the US for first time
U.S. consumers’ total credit card debt exceeded $1 trillion for the first time, according to a new study by the personal finance website WalletHub. Consumers took on an additional $92.2 billion in debt last year, the highest single-year amount since 2007. The average U.S. household owes $8,600 on credit cards, WalletHub found.
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-1 +1
The Easiest method of creating web forms from salesforce object
Form builders are tools that assist the website owner in creating forms for users. Web forms are key cogs in every website. Forms are always in use on a website. Registration, sign up, survey, contact, subscription list, etc all operates via web forms.
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+1 +1
Subversion of the Everyday: Artist MyeongBeom Kim Reinterprets Common Objects in Delightful Ways
MyeongBeom Kim (previously) builds unique works by combining everyday objects whose purposes are often in stark contrast. The sculptures are created from recognizable pieces such as birthday cake candles, canes, and standard #2 pencils. These objects are reworked to drastically limit their inherent
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+4 +1
The Death of the 9-5
Machines powered by self-learning algorithms and internet connections are displacing humans from all kinds of jobs, from driving to legal discovery to acting in movies. Will there be any work left for us to do? Economics says yes. Will it be awful or will it be nice? That is up to us.
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+8 +1
Pay rises faster for top 1% of earners in developed world – report
Pay is rising much faster for the top 1% of earners compared with those on average salaries in the richest countries, according to a report calling on governments to do more to tackle “wageless growth” since the financial crisis. Despite more people being in work than at any time since the onset of the banking crisis a decade ago, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said wage growth was still “missing in action” across the 35 countries represented by the Paris-based group of wealthy nations.
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+10 +1
The economy has slowed to a standstill, largely because of Brexit
FOR some time Britain’s vote in June 2016 to leave the European Union appeared to be having little economic impact. Sterling slumped but GDP growth in the second half of 2016 was faster than in the first. Unemployment fell, rather than jumping, as most economists had feared. Yet the notion that the economy would escape Brexit uncertainty was always fantastical. Britain’s economy has gone from a leader to a laggard internationally, as GDP growth has slowed sharply (see chart).
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+7 +1
China pledges US$23 billion in loans and aid to Arab states
Free-trade deals are also on the cards, as President Xi Jinping tells forum Beijing wants to ‘become the keeper of peace and stability’ in the region. Beijing will also further explore the possibility of free-trade deals with each of the 22 states in the Arab League, as Xi reiterated commitments to globalisation at a time when China is locked in a trade battle with the US. China and the Arab League – a regional bloc of states in and around North Africa, the Horn of Africa and Arabia – agreed to upgrade their bilateral ties to form a “strategic partnership of comprehensive cooperation...
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+16 +1
Higher minimum wage will boost economy of cities
A small rise in the minimum wage in Britain’s main city regions would encourage employers to deploy workers more productively and help boost local economies by more than £1bn, says a thinktank. According to the study, by the Smith Institute, employers need the spur of a higher minimum wage to shake them out of a spiral of low productivity and low growth that depresses company revenues and has trapped about 2 million workers on the current minimum wage of £7.38 an hour...
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+12 +1
Canada is selling fewer armoured vehicles to the Saudis than it planned
A Canadian defence contractor will be selling fewer armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia than originally planned, according to new documents obtained by CBC News. That could be a mixed blessing in light of the ongoing diplomatic dispute between the two countries, say human rights groups and a defence analyst.
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+16 +1
The United States Is Going Broke - Daily Reckoning
Those who focus on the U.S. national debt (and I’m one of them) keep wondering how long this debt levitation act can go on. The U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is at the highest level in history (106%), with the exception of the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. At least in 1945, the U.S. had won the war and our economy dominated world output and production. Today, we have the debt without the global dominance.
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