Salon.com > Wealth

Study: Muscle men more politically conservative

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:32:00 +0000

Researchers from Denmark's Aarhus University found that the more upper body strength a wealthy man has, the more likely he is to support conservative, self-interested economic and social policies. Conversely, similarly wealthy but not-similarly-stacked men were more likely to support policies in favor of wealth redistribution, such as higher taxes on the very rich. (Related: Does anyone know how much Warren Buffet is benching these days?)

The scientists say they based their hypothesis on evolutionary theory, as Science 2.0 reports:

It’s easy to get fired in America

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:22:00 +0000

Don’t get too comfy at your desk, your job might not be as secure as you think. Anecdotal reports from labor lawyers and a few polls show that most Americans believe their bosses must have a good reason to kick them to the curb. We labor under the illusion of what Harvard labor economist Richard Freeman calls, “there’s-got-to-be-a-law syndrome.” We don’t want to believe someone can be fired because her boss finds her sexually irresistible. In every other industrialized democracy, that couldn’t legally happen, but in 49 of the 50 states there is no law requiring a just or reasonable cause for employee termination.

Most Americans can be legally fired for almost any reason. Private sector workplace relationships tend to operate under the standard of employment-at-will, which means you can be fired for the color of your shirt, your political views, supporting your favorite sports team or for refusing to fetch your boss a cup of coffee. The Bill of Rights does not apply to your office.

Obama’s plutocratic choice for Commerce Secretary

Tue, 07 May 2013 15:52:00 +0000

President Obama has let the public down once again with his pick for Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, the billionaire businesswoman who led the national 2008 fundraising effort that kept the Obama campaign’s hopes alive and catapulted him to the White House.

Loyalty and trust are prized political values—and clearly Obama trusts Pritzker, whom he has known for two decades. But Obama’s fealty is going to be tested because her record as a businesswoman shares similarities with Mitt Romney’s. Her massive wealth is kept in tax-avoiding offshore accounts. Her family’s best-known business, the Hyatt hotel empire, is known for bitter and ongoing disputes with labor unions. Her resume includes running a bank that pioneered high-interest subprime loans and then failed miserably, leaving uninsured depositors with losses averaging $6,000.

Incomes of bottom 90 percent grew $59 in 40 years

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:12:00 +0000

Pulitzer Prize-winner David Cay Johnston has highlighted yet more statistics that illuminate the spike in income inequality in the U.S. in recent decades. Flagging Johnston's analysis, HuffPo noted Monday, "Incomes for the bottom 90 percent of Americans only grew by $59 on average between 1966 and 2011 (when you adjust those incomes for inflation)... During the same period, the average income for the top 10 percent of Americans rose by $116,071."

Johnston offered a visual analogy for the disparity in a column for Tax Analysts last month:

Study: Wealth gap between whites and blacks has ballooned

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:12:00 +0000

A new Brandeis University social sciences study highlights that the wealth gap between white and black people has ballooned in recent decades. The study argues that "the dramatic gap in household wealth that now exists along racial lines in the United States... reflects policies and institutional practices that create different opportunities for whites and African-Americans."

The researchers assessed median household incomes and wealth (what you own minus what you owe) found that "there is no question that the difference in median wealth between America's white and African-American households has grown stunningly large. Via Brandeis' Institute on Assets and Social Policy:

The new study found the wealth gap almost tripled from 1984 to 2009, increasing from $85,000 to $236,500. The median net worth of white households in the study has grown to $265,000 over the 25-year period compared with just $28,500 for black households.

Major charitable gifts dropped by 30 percent last year

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 19:45:00 +0000

Britain's conservative Prime Minister David Cameron couches his current austerity government policy in the rhetoric of "The Big Society." The idea is that as the government hacks away at the welfare state, notions of civic society will be invoked to replace Britain's benefits safety net. Volunteerism and charitable giving will patch up the gaping wounds left by budget cuts, or so the proponents of Cameron's Big Society would suggest.

Tomes can and have been filled about the problems underpinning Cameron's Big Society. One issue among many is that the charitable giving of the very wealthy is an inconsistent resource. As new findings by the Chronicle of Philanthropy show, major charitable gifts in the U.S. dropped by 30 percent in 2012:

The largest gifts announced by American philanthropists in 2012 totaled nearly $5.1 billion, but $3 billion of that was from Warren Buffett’s promise in August to give stock valued at $1 billion to each of three foundations run by his children.

Without Mr. Buffett’s pledges, the biggest gifts announced in 2012 would have totaled only $2 billion — far less than 2011’s $2.6 billion.

Rich people: Raise my death taxes!

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 17:25:00 +0000

While other critical tax issues have been largely overshadowed by the looming expiration of the Bush income tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, Congress is also debating what to do about another massive giveaway to the rich implemented under George W. Bush -- a dramatic cut, followed by the complete elimination of the estate tax, which conservatives derisively refer to as the “death tax.”

In 2001, Bush signed a law that gradually lowered the estate tax rate until 2010, at which point it was completely repealed. Congress extended the tax temporarily at the end of year (leaving people who died that year off the hook) and set the rate like this: The first $5 million of wealth go completely untaxed, while wealth above that line is taxed at just 35 percent. That temporary patch will expire at the end of the year, and if Congress does not act, rates revert to the much higher Clinton levels: An exemption on just the first $1 million and a 55 percent tax on all income above that.

Obama’s humblebrag: How to tell everyone you’re rich

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:04:00 +0000

Mitt Romney was never able to find the right way to talk about his money, but Barack Obama is happy to tell you that he's rich, again and again. That is, if he's asking for higher marginal taxes on the rich, whose ranks Obama first joined with book-related earnings and then with his $400,000 White House salary.

Obama said it again this week: "What the country needs … is an acknowledgment that folks like me can afford to pay a little bit higher rate," he told Bloomberg News. He's been saying it at least since April 2011, when he was pushing the "Buffett rule": "I don't need another tax cut," he said. "Warren Buffett doesn't need another tax cut."

Median wealth of U.S. households lowest since 1969

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 15:45:00 +0000

New research from NYU economics professor Edward Wolff, flagged by Think Progress, found that the median wealth of American households plummeted over the years 2007 to 2010, and by 2010 was at its lowest level since 1969. Meanwhile, the late 2000's saw a high rise inequality: while the median wealth fell, the top 1 percent increased their wealth by 71 percent between 2007 and 2010 (a statistic almost ready-made for an Occupy Wall Street banner).

Wolff argues that while "the debt of the middle class exploded from 1983 to 2007, already creating a very fragile middle class in the United States... their position deteriorated even more over the 'Great Recession.'" His research also detailed how the household wealth of racial minorities and young people dropped to an even greater extent in the wake of the housing bubble's burst, when house prices collapsed: