Bob Lord

Posted by Bob Lord

Inequality and climate change, two of our three most critical challenges (American imperialism being the third), have one thing in common:

Each report is more stunning (and more depressing) than the previous one. 

The following is an excerpt from Welcome to the Guilded City of New York, an article that appeared in a recent issue of The Nation:

Here is New York in 2013: a city of dazzling resurrection and official neglect, remarkable wealth and even more remarkable inequality. Despite the popular narrative of a city reborn—after the fiscal crisis of the ’70s, the crack epidemic of the ’80s, the terrorist attack of 2001, the superstorm of 2012—the extraordinary triumph of New York’s existence is tempered by the outrage of that inequality. Here, one of the country’s poorest congressional districts, primarily in the South Bronx, sits less than a mile from one of its wealthiest, which includes Manhattan’s Upper East Side. And here, a billionaire mayor presides over a homelessness crisis so massive that 50,000 men, women and children sleep in shelters each night. More New Yorkers are homeless these days than at any time since the Great Depression.

Posted by Bob Lord

What I guessed would be an obscure blog post last week regarding the Phoenix CD8 campaign became far more serious when Stewart's general consultant, Mario Diaz, acknowledged it in three separate tweets last Thursday. Remarkably, Diaz thought it a good idea to raise awareness of blatantly disparaging remarks Marie Rose Wilcox, a Warren Stewart supporter, made about Kate Gallego, one of Stewart's opponents. Then, after I responded to his tweets in a second post, Diaz acknowledged that post in yet a fourth tweet.

Now, one of Arizona's premier bloggers, Donna at Democratic Diva, has posted on the subject:

As for Pastor Stewart, he is known for having a very traditional view of marriage, judging from statements he made condemning same-sex marriage in the strongest possible terms last fall (they’ve been scrubbed from his church’s website but can still be found elsewhere). A woman in a straight marriage taking her husband’s last name is about as traditional as it gets. I should think Stewart, of all people, would approve of that.

At any rate, Stewart cannot claim ignorance of Wilcox’s inflammatory remarks since he was present at the telephone town hall when she said them and his consultant then doubled down on supporting both him and Wilcox in response to Lord’s posts. I get that tempers flare in campaigns and sometimes people involved in them blurt out inappropriate things. The thing for Stewart, Wilcox, and Diaz to do right now is to apologize to Kate Gallego for that defamatory accusation against her. The longer they remain silent on it the more it looks like a deliberate tactic, once shouted at a town hall and now muted to a whisper campaign.

Diaz's acknowledgment of my posts makes a big difference.

Posted by Bob Lord I have the third post in my series up at inequality.org, Tax-Free Municipals: An Unnecessary Giveaway. I'm having second thoughts about the title. Did I imply that some giveaways are necessary?  The purpose of this series is to shine a light on the giant pools of assets producing income that is … Read more

Posted by Bob Lord No surprise here. The OECD reports that income inequality increased as much in the past three years as it did in the preceding twelve years. And the OECD countries with the largest income gap between rich and poor: Turkey, Chile, Mexico, Israel and the old US of A. I've previously noted that … Read more

Posted by Bob Lord The median income of an American family of four is around $50,000. That means half of all American families are living on $50,000 or less. In other words, they're hanging on by their fingernails. Want to know what the average income is for a family of four in America? From Sam … Read more