What has the potential to save more lives, the insurance reforms in the landmark health care bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month or the higher taxes on the rich the bill imposes to pay for those reforms? This rather odd question would likely strike most Americans as somewhat silly. What could the level of taxes on the rich possibly have to do with our health? Maybe more than we think. Maybe much more. So suggests new research — by a team of Japanese and American health analysts — just published in one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals. Inequality, this research helps establish, kills. In societies where public policies — like higher taxes on the rich — keep the distribution of income and wealth relatively equal, fewer people die. Staggeringly fewer people.

The value of top executives's pensions rose an average of 19 percent last year even as their companies' share prices dropped, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Over 200 executives saw pensions jump over 50 percent. The spike, the Journal said, was due in part to "generous" pension formulas based on executive pay and to "arcane" techniques that trigger the increases. Executive pensions grew even though the share prices at the firms dropped an average of 37 percent in 2008, while many companies froze employee pensions and suspended contributions to retirement plans, noted the newspaper.

"(G)rowing income inequality is a cancer that is attacking both the economy, and the social and political fabric of our society. A look at economic history makes several things clear. ... The creation of a democratic society, built on egalitarian principles, is the only real systematic means of assuring that the interests of the entire society are not sacrificed to those of powerful elites."

It's too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s almost illegal to be poor. You won’t be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life — like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering. City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the ’80s and ’90s. “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,” a city attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in June, echoing Anatole France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.”

"For the past four years, I have observed the military occupation of the high school where I teach science. Currently, Chicago's Senn High School houses Rickover Naval Academy (RNA). I use the term "occupation" because part of our building was taken away despite student, parent, teacher and community opposition to RNA's opening. Senn students are made to feel like second-class citizens inside their own school, due to inequalities."

Of the many ways in which a ruling elite of just one percent of the US population wages war upon the American people, the denial of health to everyone but the very rich is the most evil. This is a direct result of the GOP/right wing domination of America since the rise of Ronald Reagan. Today, just one percent of the population is in a position to deny everyone but very, very rich a right to even basic health care. Denied this right, millions will die that might have lived productive and meaningful lives. This is not merely a matter of personal loss; it is that of the nation.

If you feel that you are not receiving your share of America’s treasure, then you are not alone. Data on income and wealth from the US show that as the American economy develops, both income and wealth become increasingly concentrated into the hands of the richest Americans.

Income tax day fun and games at BuzzFlash (with humor and outrage links). Something for every tax day mood, from Cartoonist Jeff MacNelly's hilarious "1040 form," to a chart showing where your tax money goes.

"The problem isn’t taxes. The problem is who pays taxes and who gets the benefits. The federal tax code becomes less fair every year. Thirty years ago, the tax code was broadly progressive, reflecting shared contributions to public investments and our common good...Now the tax code is a scam...This inequality is no accident. It is not the result of market forces, globalization or technology. It is the result of policy decisions that could have been made differently...Our new report documents the inequality...We also explain what to do about it, and how to make the code more progressive...Finally, our report explains what taxes are for. From schools to roads to hospitals. Our government performs these functions. It isn't free. And paying for our needs is the essence of responsible leadership."

"The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) provides an important but small down-payment on the repair and modernization of our infrastructure (though a larger and more-permanent commitment is needed). One benefit of this public investment is that it will help reduce hourly wage inequality, which has been growing for decades and represents the single largest impediment to raising the living standards of typical American workers."

90% of global GDP will be represented at the G20 table in London on 2nd April. All that will be missing is 90% of the world’s countries.

Rising tuition and sinking bank accounts are turning the nation's colleges into bastions of inequality.

A new report released by the International Trade Union Confederation for March 8, International Women's Day, has revealed that the pay gap between men and women worldwide may be much higher than official government figures. The report, "Gender (in)Equality in the Labour Market", is based on survey results of some 300,000 women and men in 20 countries. It puts the global pay gap at up to 22%, rather than the 16.5% figure taken from official government figures and released by the ITUC on March 8 last year. The report also confirms previous findings that union membership, and particularly the inclusion of women in collective bargaining agreements, leads to much better incomes for both women and men, as well as better pay for women relative to their male co-workers.

This isn't about "class warfare" -- even though that is what you'll continue to hear from those on the Right who, as the article reports, for some 30 years have been effectively looting the national treasury and all the other wealth created by the hard-working, anything-but-rich people of this great nation.

"an analysis of tax filings of more than 4,000 other employees at 600 private colleges shows that presidents' earnings are relatively modest. [sarcasm]...For example, the head football coach at the University of Southern California and a Columbia University dermatologist each earned more than $4 million in 2007, making them the highest paid employees at private colleges. The presidents, meanwhile, earned about $900,000 and $1.4 million, respectively."

The United States imprisons more of its population than any other country on the planet, and most astoundingly, we account for less than 5% of the world's population yet close to 25% of the world's prisoners are located in American prisons. As The New York Times' Adam Liptak put it in an excellent and thorough April, 2008 article, revealing how self-absorbed and hypocritical are the cries for mercy, understanding and "moving on" being made by media stars and political elites on behalf of lawbreaking Bush officials

"The (International Labour Office) study, entitled 'Global Wage Report 2008/09,' finds that since 1995 inequality between the highest and lowest wages has increased in more than two-thirds of the countries for which there is data. The United States is one of the advanced countries in which the gap between the highest and the lowest wages has grown most rapidly(.)"

When I worked for then-Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the late 1990s, Washington was in the panting throes of a deregulatory orgy. Many lampooned my boss’s opposition to the grotesquerie, and his notoriety as the only self-described socialist in Congress. Nobody guessed that a few years later, our country would become the globe’s newest U.S.S.R.: The United States’ Socialist Republic.

The American Dream is long gone. The expectation of rising living standards for each generation of workers has given way to a low-wage economy in which young workers will struggle just to match their parents' income--and are increasingly likely to end up worse off. Even before the current economic crisis took hold, workers were working harder for less and carrying big debts to compensate for falling income. Record numbers of workers endured long and fruitless searches for employment, while those who had jobs are plagued with insecurity over their employment, health care and retirement. Employers routinely violate labor laws, combining 21st century surveillance technology that monitor workers' every movement with 19th century management practices like locking in workers on the night shift at Wal-Mart, and forcing them to work off the clock.

As the country prepares to elect the next president of the United States pundits and politicians will certainly talk about "working families" --"middle class families" -– and "poor families." Isn’t it time we address the needs of America’s families collectively? All families, despite their economic status – be they two-parent or single-parent families – share the same goal: to provide for their families and ensure a bright future for their children. America’s families rise and fall together. Between January and June 2008, approximately 12,000 families from diverse backgrounds, often with children in tow, gave up their weekends and evenings to participate in 65 Equal Voice townhall meetings held across America. At each town hall meeting, they were inspired, engaged and motivated. Families conveyed not only a sense of urgency but also their desire to be directly involved in the creation of policies that affect them — to be drivers of change. They tied family stability to living-wage jobs, affordable housing, quality healthcare and education. They let us know that their well-being is not tied to a single issue, that piecemeal solutions have failed to address the complexities of their lives. The testimonies of families at the townhall meetings have been synthesized into a cohesive National Family Platform.