The pie is still getting bigger very quickly. It's the share of the pie that belongs to the 99% or even 99.9% that is getting smaller. Recall those stats sayin

The pie is still getting bigger very quickly. It's the share of the pie that belongs to the 99% or even 99.9% that is getting smaller. Recall those stats saying "the top x richest people in the US have more wealth than the bottom y% of Americans". The ratios they present have only been getting more extreme over time. The latest report from Oxfam[1] says things like: * In the last 10 years, billionaires have doubled their wealth, making nearly six times more than the increase in wealth seen by the bottom 50%. * Since 2020, for every dollar the bottom 90% have gained, billionaires have gained $1.7m. * 81 Billionaires hold more wealth than 50% of the world combined. * During the worst of the pandemic, according to the World Bank, the income losses among the poorest 40% of humanity were twice as large as among the richest 20%, and global income inequality has risen for the first time in decades. See Section 1.1 for the big hitter statistics. Chapter 2 goes into the whys, which corresponds pretty closely to a description of what you could call a cartel operation conducted by the global elite. ...so not only is the pie already insanely skewed, but the companies that these people control are raising profit margins on essential goods and services during a time where those who are already precariously-positioned in our economy are losing out on income opportunities so fast that global progress on income inequality reversed during this time. This is literally entirely about the extraction being done by the class of people who have executive control over the policies and mechanisms of extraction -- minerals/metals/water/fossil fuels/generally physical extraction, predatory/extractive behaviors in finance, privatization vis a vis a minimization of accountability which acts as a force multiplier for extraction, etc. These are those who pat themselves and each other on the back for flying on planes powered by kerosene to a centralized location to make non-binding, unenforceable gestures in the loose shape of policy at periodic COP and Davos summits. These are those who pacify and distract the masses with unified narrative-making campaigns to manufacture consent for the status quo -- lies like "recycling is an individual problem" and "privatization and unregulated markets are prosperous economies", as well as redirections and mislabelings like "wouldn't more cops (guns) in school mean children will be safer?" and "through our cameras you can see violent, out-of-state rioters in the streets". A wealth tax is not an insane idea. It is a gentle brake that allows us to regain enough control of our earth-ship to maneuver around the imminent obstacles. We can talk about more radical steps if you want, I'm all about more active global economic management, but we need to recognize what this system is becoming. [1] https://webassets.oxfamamerica.org/media/documents/survival-of-the-richest_ENG_tWRXYqT.pdf https://webassets.oxfamamerica.org/media/documents/survival-...