A Human Economy (This is America)

Billionaire's Club

According to a report from CBS News, a new billionaire is minted every two minutes. this growth of the elite is coming at a cost to the middle class and the poor. 

According to Oxfam, the world's wealth is not creating more opportunities for the vast majority of people.  The distribution of wealth is top heavy. The shift of wealth began growing with the tax cuts for the wealthy during the Reagan administration. It has only become worse during the Trump administration.  In 2017, President Trump reduced tax rates for individuals and corporations, a decrease that favors the rich and businesses.

Oxfam is calling for a new approach, A Human Economy.

Trickle down and all boats rise is not working. Oxfam is calling for new policies. Paul O'Brien is vice president for policy and advocacy at Oxfam America.

 "Fundamentally the human economy is built from different principals than the growth economy," O'Brien said. "For years, the consensus was, 'Growth solves everything.' But that has fallen apart. Our planet has limited boundaries. We can't burn more, use more, and break through ecological boundaries that are essential for sustaining human life."

O'Brien says, the "human economy" would provide health care, education and gender equality to people across the globe, he said. "All the data show that educating your children is the best way to build a healthy economy and create genuine shared wealth. We need to get kids into quality schools, and get rid of these legal and cultural barriers to women being treated unfairly in the workplace, being burdened and discounted."

Raising taxes on the world's richest people and corporations would help fund those programs, with Oxfam calculating that boosting taxes on the richest by 0.5 percent would raise enough money to educate the 262 million children who currently don't receive an education and provide healthcare that would save 3.3 million people from preventable deaths.

In the past, unequal distribution of wealth has led to unequal opportunity, slowed economic growth, lowered expectations, social unrest and revolution. It matters.