Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Michael Savage discusses new projections showing that the luckiest 1% could control two-thirds of the world's wealth in a little more than a decade:

World leaders are being warned that the continued accumulation of wealth at the top will fuel growing distrust and anger over the coming decade unless action is taken to restore the balance.

An alarming projection produced by the House of Commons library suggests that if trends seen since the 2008 financial crash were to continue, then the top 1% will hold 64% of the world’s wealth by 2030. Even taking the financial crash into account, and measuring their assets over a longer period, they would still hold more than half of all wealth.

Since 2008, the wealth of the richest 1% has been growing at an average of 6% a year – much faster than the 3% growth in wealth of the remaining 99% of the world’s population. Should that continue, the top 1% would hold wealth equating to $305tn (£216.5tn) – up from $140tn today.
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Danny Dorling, professor of geography at the University of Oxford, said the scenario in which the super-rich accumulated even more wealth by 2030 was a realistic one.

“Even if the income of the wealthiest people in the world stops rising dramatically in the future, their wealth will still grow for some time,” he said. “The last peak of income inequality was in 1913. We are near that again, but even if we reduce inequality now it will continue to grow for one to two more decades.”

- Lois Weiner writes about the much-needed renaissance of labour activism in the U.S.' red states, while LOLGOP points out the link between tax giveaways to the rich and the recognition that it's time to take to the streets. And Nick Hanauer discusses rules around overtime as the minimum wage for the middle class - while noting the urgent need to ensure excess hours lead to fair pay.

- Meanwhile, Ben Schneiders and Royce Millar take note of an Australian push to ensure that employers face a real prospect of jail time for wage theft.

- An anonymous library worker comments on how homeless people and others with urgent needs suffer the most from attacks on public library funding. And Nicola Slawson reports on research showing that GP visits to care homes can substantially reduce the disruption and cost of future hospital visits.

- Finally, Azeezah Kanji writes that any ignorance of systemic racism is utterly disconnected from reality. And Noah Smith rightly challenges the claim that demographic uniformity enforced through the repression of minorities somehow contributes to social cohesion or trust.