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  • Income Distribution in the US
    How is our income distributed? Well, it is pretty concentrated. How concentrated? Take a look.
  • Progress and Poverty, by Henry George
    Here are links to online editions of George's landmark book, Progress & Poverty, including audio and a number of abridgments -- the shortest is 30 words! I commend this book to your attention, if you are concerned about economic justice, poverty, sprawl, energy use, pollution, wages, housing affordability. Its observations will change how you approach all these problems. A mind-opening experience!
  • Wealth Concentration Tables from 2004 SCF: Bottom 90%, Next 9% and Top 1%
    Aggregated data by net worth quantile, for various kinds of wealth. With calculations you won't find anywhere else!
  • Wealth Concentration Tables from 2004 SCF: 50-40-5-4-1
    These tables show how concentrated the ownership of various kinds of assets are. With calculations you won't find anywhere else! This version is less aggregated: Bottom 50%, Next 40%, Next 5%, Next 4% and Top 1%.

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  • Henry George: Progress and Poverty: An inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with increase of wealth ... The Remedy
    This is perhaps the most important book ever written on the subjects of poverty, political economy, how we might live together in a society dedicated to the ideals Americans claim to believe are self-evident. It will provide you new lenses through which to view many of our most serious problems and how we might go about solving them: poverty, sprawl, long commutes, despoilation of the environment, housing affordability, wealth concentration, income concentration, concentration of power, low wages, etc. Read it online, or in hardcopy.
  • Bob Drake's abridgement of Henry George's original: Progress and Poverty: Why There Are Recessions and Poverty Amid Plenty -- And What To Do About It!
    This is a very readable thought-by-thought updating of Henry George's longer book, written in the language of a newsweekly. A fine way to get to know Henry George's ideas. Available online at progressandpoverty.org and http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm

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« The Earth-for-All Calendar: February 8 -- Will Carleton | Main | The Earth-for-All Calendar: February 9 -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning »

February 08, 2012

The Land Questions: #8 -- Natural Resource Royalties

8. The corporations which pump oil from beneath federal lands are paying low royalties into the federal treasury, despite the fact that the price of oil has risen significantly since their royalties were set.  Should their royalties be raised?

A. No.  A deal is a deal, and those corporations made their business plans in good faith.  The spoils belong to them.  They can sell those rights to whomever they choose to, at whatever price they can get, for the benefit of their shareholders and their management.

B. Yes.   All persons have equal rights to the gifts of nature.

C. Yes.  The resource is finite, and the oil companies don't create it.

D. Yes. We can now see that we will be running out of oil, and the price is rising, for reasons that have nothing to do with the oil companies.

E. your suggestions?

Posted on February 08, 2012 at 09:31 AM in corporations, equality, land different from capital, natural resource revenues, natural resources, oil, special interests, the land questions, time making wrongs into rights |

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