How is the billionaire class harming you? The answer may be deeper and more pervasive than you imagined.

My guest, Chuck Collins, author of Burned by Billionaires, is an expert in the subject of rising wealth inequality. The share of US wealth concentrated in the top .01% has grown exponentially. Within one year, during the pandemic, while many people and small businesses were struggling to survive, the total wealth of the billionaire class grew by about 54%.

Chuck Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies where he co-edits Inequality.org - and is the author of numerous books and articles.

The greatest social disruption is driven by households in the top one-tenth of one percent. The excesses of the few have out-sized costs for the rest of us. As we talk, you may recognize some of the harms you have experienced in your own life. How about the rising costs of food, housing, health care, education, and the increasing effects of the climate crisis and media consolidation. Is this situation sustainable?

How can we change the status quo and shift to a healthier more prosperous system for everyone?

You may recognize my guest, Chuck Collins, from our previous episodes: #54 How Trillions in Hidden Wealth Impacts Us; #52 Unveiling the Power of Activism in the Climate Crisis, and in the more recent episode #59, Hijacked by Billionaires.

Why so much attention to this issue? Because a small adjustment to wealth accumulation by the few can have a tremendous benefit for the future of humanity and our planet. This episode is a call for a better world, one where we can thrive together.

After listening, you may want to gather and talk with your neighbors and friends, share stories and ideas, and celebrate the joy of community. When we join our voices and work together, we are powerful.

For more information:

Chuck Collins https://www.chuckcollinswrites.com

An excellent newsletter https://inequality.org

Excessive CEO Pay: https://inequality.org/article/pope-ceo-pay/Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Rashida Tlaib are spearheading an effort behind one particularly promising solution: hefty tax hikes on companies with huge gaps between their CEO and median worker pay.

Their recently introduced Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act would base the CEO-worker pay ratio on five-year averages of the total compensation for a firm’s highest-paid executive and median worker. The tax increases would start at 0.5 percentage points on companies with gaps of 50 to 1 and top out at five percentage points on firms that pay their CEO more than 500 times median worker pay.

Billionaire wealth concentration. https://inequality.org/article/billionaire-wealth-concentration-is-even-worse-than-you-imagine/

Charity Reform Initiative https://inequality.org/action/charity-reform-initiative/

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