The Liberal Gun Club Forum

More than two-thirds of the world's entire wealth will be owned by the richest 1% of people by 2030, new research warns.

The shocking findings of the new report produced by the UK's House of Commons Library claims that if trends which began after the 2008 financial crisis continue, the 1% will control 64% of world's money in just 12 years' time.

The widening gap between the 1% and everyone else was first highlighted by the Occupy Wall Street movement, which started in 2011 and famously used the slogan: "We are the 99%."

The study claims that the wealth of the richest one percent grows at six percent annually, outstripping the three percent annual growth of everyone else, causing a continual movement of money to the top.

Polling that accompanies the study indicated that the majority of people are unhappy about wealth inequality. Thirty-four percent said that the super-rich would have the most power in 2030, more even than governments (28 percent).

More than four in ten of those polled also said they worried that rising income inequality would lead to corruption or the "super-rich enjoying unfair influence on government policy".

Since 2008, the assets of the top 1% have been growing at twice the rate of the other 99%.

If that rate carries on, the 1% will own about $305 trillion by 2030, up from $139 trillion today.

After Kentucky's GOP-controlled legislature passed a bill last week to slash teachers' retirement benefits—a proposal that has provoked a series of massive protests—lawmakers approved legislation that would cut taxes for the state's wealthiest residents while hiking taxes for the remaining 95 percent, moves that critics say clearly demonstrate the misplaced priorities of the Republican Party.

As Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez put it:

The Kentucky GOP just rammed through a bill that includes $80 million in corporate tax cuts, but taxes Kentuckians for car repairs and trips to the vet. Don't ever tell me again that the GOP is fighting for average Americans. https://t.co/pXCHqiL4pG

— Tom Perez (@TomPerez) April 3, 2018

Although both bills still need a signature from Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, he seemed to signal his support for the pension bill on Twitter, and while he has expressed concerns about the tax measure, the legislature could override a veto. If the tax plan takes effect, experts warn that the states' poorest residents will be hardest hit.

"The whole plan is a big tax shift from the wealthy and corporations to the middle class and poor," Jason Bailey, executive director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy (KCEP), told the Lexington Herald-Leader. Bailey highlighted analysis from the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) that found those in the state's top one percent will save, on average, more than $7,000.

Kentucky's tax overhaul is designed to cut taxes for top earners as well as corporations—like the GOP's federal tax plan pushed through Congress late last year—but unlike the new federal code, as Jeff Stein explained in the Washington Post, "Kentucky Republicans are aiming to avoid dramatically increasing the deficit. That is one reason the Kentucky plan includes an expansion of the sales tax, which is expected to hit most state residents."

Outlining key provisions of the state's plan, Stein continued:

The plan would flatten Kentucky's corporate and personal income-tax rates, setting both at 5 percent. Currently, Kentucky's corporate tax rate runs between 4 and 6 percent, while its income-tax rate ranges from 2 to 6 percent. The new flat rate of 5 percent for everyone means that small companies and Kentuckians with below-average incomes will face tax hikes, and higher earners will get tax cuts.

The bill attempts to make up for those cuts by nearly doubling the cigarette tax and imposing sales taxes on 17 additional services, including landscaping, janitorial work, golf courses and pet grooming.

Pam Thomas, a policy analyst at KCEP, warned, "In the long-run, state funding for education and other services will be undermined by this effort to move away from taxes on corporations and high-income earners, and toward slower-growing, more regressive cigarette taxes and sales taxes instead."

Some critics of Kentucky's pending tax legislation pointed out that the thousands of teachers who have spent weeks fighting for their pensions and demanding greater government investment in public education will be among those negatively impacted by it:

So Kentucky teachers get a tax hike on top of their pension cuts, all to pay for a huge tax cut for the top 1%. https://t.co/IP5ehm2h4w

— Alex Rowell (@AlexRowell) April 5, 2018

Kentucky is adopting this tax disaster while its teachers are going on strike amidst pension cuts, & other cuts. @alexnpress has a great report: https://t.co/YAPnNKyKsJ pic.twitter.com/M9mh1IfuR2

— Taniel (@Taniel) April 5, 2018

In fact, the state's new tax plan directly contradicts with proposals from Kentucky teachers for saving retirement benefits.

"Kentucky has one of the most poorly funded pension systems in the country, a product of underperforming investments, persistent underfunding, and the use of hedge-fund investment managers by Kentucky Retirement Systems, the agency in charge of the fund," Alex Press wrote for The Outline this week. "Teachers acknowledge the severity of the pension crisis, but disagree with how the legislature wants to close the gap in funding."

Teachers who spoke with Press have proposed "closing corporate tax loopholes, legalizing marijuana, or otherwise taxing luxury services" to raise revenue. However, she concluded, it appears Bevin is ignoring those calls and "demanding further austerity from the public sector" instead.

m1ckDELTA wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 1:54 pm There is a global money grab happening that is unprecedented. The wealthy are securing what they need to build more private cities such as Dubai. Private cities are a natural geo-socio-cultural extension of planned communities where HOAs dictate the behavior of residents who are willing to sacrifice a seemingly small portion of their freedom. So, this idea isn't far-fetched, the seeds have been germination for a long time already. As I have stated many times in the past, the future is not Orwellian it is Huxleyan and it has begun in earnest.

For those who choose not to move into private cities (or are refused entrance into the most exclusive), there will be less money for public infrastructure such as emergency service and public water treatment; a large segment of law enforcement and emergency services will be lured to higher paying private cities and those cities will have the financial influence to "procure" clean drinking water for it's more affluent "citizens" (Nestle has already accomplished this on a national scale throughout our Public Land system). In spite of the absence of Constitutional Rights, private cities will become extremely desirable as urban and suburban decay continue unabated. Soon enough, even those outside of private cities will be willing to relinquish their Constitutional Rights in an effort to secure clean drinking water, a working 911 system, and the many other public municipal services that will disappear in the wake of a shrinking tax base and the attendant shrinking budgets.

Private cities will redefine the definition of "public housing" wherein anyone's residence in a Constitutionally protected non-corporate metropolitan area will fall under the category of "public housing". Expect "eminent domain" to also be redefined as "public city" populations decrease and the need for "private city" expansion increases. How long before private cities, being corporations and possessing "personhood", could be allowed political representation on behalf of their "citizens"? Residents of private cities would be under the administration of something akin to a HOA, a "COA", wherein a requirement of being allowed to live in the city could very well be giving up one's individual voting rights in exchange for "collective" representation by a corporate board member or CPO (Chief Political Officer). Private city residents would send privately chosen corporate officers to represent them in Washington instead of publicly elected officials. How long would it take for private corporate representatives to outnumber publicly elected representatives in the House and Senate?

If nothing else, my above thesis will make a great sci-fi short story...


https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015 ... city-world


Or not.


https://fee.org/articles/private-cities ... o-liberty/

TrueTexan wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 3:54 pm

m1ckDELTA wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 1:54 pm (snipped for size)

Reminds me of the Renaissance period with city states like Venice and Florence Italy where the businesses of the time ruled. Also the feudal castle period.. I remeber a sci-fi story about when corpations made war and ruled like governments. Look at where corporation are able to overrule local governments in the cases of pipelines and oil drilling because the courts have ruled they can. In Texas oil pipelines corporations have the right of eminent domain to seize property at what they consider market value.

CaptainShankypants wrote: Tue Apr 10, 2018 7:01 pm The fewer educated, the fewer understand we're all getting screwed and the easier for the elites to control the populace.

Kentucky's Supreme Court has struck down a pension law that spurred thousands of the state's teachers to protest last spring. The court ruled that the way the pension bill was passed didn't give state lawmakers a "fair opportunity" to consider it. In a surprise maneuver, both chambers pushed the measure through in a matter of hours — before the public and even some lawmakers had had a chance to read it. On March 29, after previous versions of the legislation had stalled, the Republican majority turned what had been an 11-page sewer bill into a 291-page pension bill and passed it in just hours. Kentucky law requires a bill to be read three times over three different days; the legislature tried to claim that readings when it was still a sewer bill counted, but the judge disagreed.

Republican Gov. Matt Bevin signed the bill into law in April, but a circuit court judge struck it down in June, ruling that lawmakers had violated the Kentucky Constitution in the process they used to pass the bill. With its decision Thursday, the Kentucky Supreme Court has upheld that judge's ruling, marking a major victory for state employees, as well as for Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear, who had challenged the law. The decision may have political consequences: Bevin says he will seek re-election, and Beshear plans to run for the governorship, as well. Kentucky House Republicans released a statement critical of the Supreme Court's ruling, saying the decision shows "a complete and total lack of understanding for the separation of powers."

Bevin called the ruling "an unprecedented power grab by activist judges." Beshear, meanwhile, hailed it as "a landmark win." As Kentucky Public Radio's Ryland Barton reports, the law had mostly affected new workers — teachers in particular — but also had consequences for current teachers and recently hired public workers: "The pension law would have changed how current workers can use saved-up sick days to qualify for retirement, and required employees hired between 2003 and 2008 to pay 1 percent of their salaries for retiree health insurance. "Future teachers would no longer receive defined benefit pensions that guarantee benefits from the point of retirement until death, instead receiving 'hybrid cash-balance' plans that rely on stock market growth.

"Some state workers hired since 2014 would also have the guaranteed rate of return into their hybrid plans reduced from 4 percent to 0 percent." Since the scuffle over the legislation, the Kentucky Teachers' Retirement System has been improving, the AP reports: "Independent consultants said last month that the system has more money and less unfunded debt since the legislature decided to fully fund the system's budget request. Kentucky Teachers' Retirement System Executive Secretary Gary Harbin told reporters the fate of the pension bill would have little effect on the system's future solvency."

Hiker wrote: Thu Dec 13, 2018 8:48 pm I've got to get out of this fucking state!

VodoundaVinci wrote: Thu Dec 13, 2018 6:59 pm Just vote them out. That'll solve it.....vote Democrat and magic will happen.

It's gonna come to a fight. Makes me curious about why Oligarchy owned and operated candidates, to a man/woman, want US disarmed. Capitalism has reached it's limits...we need to force a Renaissance of some type. The Fat Rich Fucks now own it all and want whats left from the rest of us folks who can barely afford food and health care.

How is this gonna get fixed?

Rhetorical question.

VooDoo

sikacz wrote: Fri Dec 14, 2018 4:37 am History would indicate close shaves. The greed of the elites rarely ends any other way. So when you see who is the major contributors to gun control causes you know it’s not our benefit, but theirs to reduce gun ownership.