Oxfam says billionaires’ wealth soared in 2024, with 4 ‘minted’ every week

A sign is seen above a branch of Oxfam, in central London, UK [File: Simon Dawson/Reuters]

Billionaires’ wealth globally grew three times faster in 2024 than the year before, global advocacy group Oxfam International says, as some of the world’s political and financial elite prepare to attend an annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland.

In its latest assessment of global inequality timed to the opening of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting, Oxfam on Monday said the combined wealth of billionaires rose by $2 trillion to $15 trillion last year.

Lawsuit Stops Trump regime from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Another big win in the lawsuit we’ve been telling you about to stop the Trump regime from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Three weeks ago, the judge issued a preliminary injunction — meaning that while the case goes forward, the administration cannot shut down the CFPB and must undo actions already taken to dismantle it.

NAACP lawsuit says Department of Education is ‘intentionally discriminating’ against Black Americans with anti-DEI orders

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 20: U.S. President Donald Trump stands with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon after signing an executive order to reduce the size and scope of the Education Department during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on March 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The NAACP is challenging the Trump administration in a new federal lawsuit that accuses the U.S. Department of Education of violating the civil rights of Black American students with its broad anti-DEI policies..

Not Known Because Not Looked For: But Heard, Half Heard, in the Stillness Between Two Waves of the Sea~T.S. Eliot

The title of this post is taken from T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding, the final poem of a series of four poems written over a six year period (1936-1942). The collection was eventually published as the Four Quartets. The poems are about a nation and a culture under threat, this final one written during the London air raids of WWII.

Trump's Executive Order Eliminates Biden-era Minimum Wage Increase

With all the focus on President Donald Trump’s trade wars, you may have missed that on March 14, 2025, Trump issued an executive order eliminating a Biden-era regulation that raised the minimum wage for private sector workers on federal contracts to $17.75 per hour. The Biden administration’s rule raised the wages of 327,300 workers, resulting in an average wage increase of $5,228 per year.

Civil Rights

When we submit our tax returns, we do so in the knowledge that they are supposed to remain confidential. That’s because of taxpayer privacy laws enacted by Congress in response to rampant misuse of IRS records during the presidency of Richard Nixon. (Remember when Nixon was as bad as we thought a president could be?)

The Next Person in a Cell With No Charges Could Be You

An interfaith prayer vigil for Kilmar Abrego Garcia is held at the White House on April 14, 2025, during the visit of El Salvador's president. Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported to a prison in El Salvador. His wife and children await his return. , Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images

Yesterday was the day democracy in our nation officially died.

Hoosiers Rally For Social Justice in 2025 in the Tradition of Eugene V, Debs

Over 700 Greater Lafayette residents rallied around the Courthouse in a “Remove! Reverse! Reclaim!” rally, April 5, 2025. This rally, organized by many local groups including Indivisible, featured numerous colorful signs including “Morons are Gas Lighting America,” “Love Your Neighbor No Deportation,” “Hands Off Social Security, Our Bodies, Medicare/Medicaid, and Our Free Speech.” The rally included chanting, speeches, singalongs, and a march across the bridge from West Lafayette to Lafayette, Indiana.

Is This the Moment American Democracy Finally Broke?

The highest form of freedom in a democracy isn’t just the right to vote or protest — it’s the right to speak truth to power. To call out corruption. To challenge lies. To stand firm when the powerful demand silence. This is the freedom that sustains all others.

And it’s the one Donald Trump tried to crush yesterday with the stroke of a pen.

The ongoing influence of slavery and Jim Crow means high poverty rates and low economic mobility in the South

For Americans living in the Southern United States, poverty rates above the national level, lower rates of economic mobility, and high rates of economic inequality are persistent features of life. A key factor explaining these trends, especially among children, is the Southern economic development model.

Trump’s Factory Fantasy: The Middle Class Won’t Rise Without Unions. Full stop.

 

Donald Trump is selling his economic chaos with a simple story:

“In the years 1945-1981, before Reagan and Clinton (and pretty much all of both parties) embraced ‘free trade’ neoliberalism, a single worker in an American factory could buy a house, take a nice vacation every year, get a new car every two or three years, put his kids through college, and retire with a comfortable pension. All because we made things in America.