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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: October 9 -- Sir Walter Scott | Main | The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 6 -- Pufendorf »

October 07, 2012

The Purpose of Campaign Contributions

A friend uses as his sig file the quote from Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania:
"I believe in the division of labor. You send us to Congress; we pass laws under which you make money ... and out of your profits, you further contribute to our campaign funds to send us back again to pass more laws to enable you to make more money."
-- Senator Boies Penrose (R-Pa.), 1896, citing the relationship between his politics and big business.

I assumed, without giving it a great deal of thought, that Senator Penrose must have been a local  machine boss of some sort.  But today I came across a reference to a paper he co-authored, circa 1886, which said that he had a Bachelor's degree from Harvard:
City Government of Philadelphia. By Edward P. Allinson, A. B. (Haverford) and Boies Penrose, A. B. (Harvard). 
and was "of the Philadelphia Bar."

Posted on October 07, 2012 at 07:13 PM in corruption in government, money in elections, pork spending, wealth distribution or concentration, wealthandwant |

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