(continued from /7)

"about the much deeper rot that’s already been laid bare about the entire decrepit class of men (because they’re almost all men) who rule the world with atrocious grammar amid a non-stop booty call.

I’m not a financial expert, but if I had disposable cash I’d avoid the hyperinflated AI bubble and invest in a company that manufactures pitchforks."

#Trump #EconomicElites #wealth #EconomicDisparity #WealthDistribution #SuperRich #GildedAge #Epstein
/8

"But the documents also reveal the stunning breadth of Epstein’s connections among the nation’s elite, including long after his initial 2008 sex crimes conviction, and the extent to which other men in positions of great power considered him a confidant or voice of reason."

~ Moira Donegan

#Trump #EconomicElites #wealth #EconomicDisparity #WealthDistribution #SuperRich #GildedAge #Epstein
/13

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/17/jeffrey-epstein-emails-elites

"The Jeffrey Epstein story makes no sense unless you realize that he was deeply entrenched in the foreign policy elite, a fact that gave him much of the impunity he enjoyed for most of his life. Powerful people felt comfortable around Epstein because he was one of them."

~ Jeet Heer

#Trump #EconomicElites #wealth #EconomicDisparity #WealthDistribution #SuperRich #GildedAge #Epstein
/12

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/jeffrey-epstein-israel-foreign-policy-elite/

"Contrast [what Bunch says] to a prominently displayed New York Times feature story that puts a nostalgic gloss on Epstein’s world. Looking back on that world and the people who inhabited it, it carried the headline, Epstein Emails Reveal a Lost New York."

~ Margaret Sullivan

#Trump #EconomicElites #wealth #EconomicDisparity #WealthDistribution #SuperRich #GildedAge #Epstein #food #prices #beef #coffee #tariffs #HealthInsurance #food #NewYorkTimes
/11

https://margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/two-opposing-media-takes-on-epsteins

"When this perfect storm strikes, an electoral bloodbath in the 2026 midterms is the best outcome Trump can hope for, on a list of dire possibilities."

#Trump #EconomicElites #wealth #EconomicDisparity #WealthDistribution #SuperRich #GildedAge #Epstein #food #prices #beef #coffee #tariffs #HealthInsurance #food
/10

"The timing couldn’t be better, or worse, for this midnight of the elites. The overblown stock market fueled by an AI hallucination is set to burst any moment, and new hiring is already grinding to a halt — just as the price of everything from steak to coffee goes through the roof and health insurance is doubling or tripling for millions of Americans."

#Trump #EconomicElites #wealth #EconomicDisparity #WealthDistribution #SuperRich #GildedAge #Epstein #food #prices #beef #coffee #tariffs
/9

(continued from /7)

"about the much deeper rot that’s already been laid bare about the entire decrepit class of men (because they’re almost all men) who rule the world with atrocious grammar amid a non-stop booty call.

I’m not a financial expert, but if I had disposable cash I’d avoid the hyperinflated AI bubble and invest in a company that manufactures pitchforks."

#Trump #EconomicElites #wealth #EconomicDisparity #WealthDistribution #SuperRich #GildedAge #Epstein
/8

And as Will Bunch reminds us, the Epstein cover-up is part and parcel of this story of the overweening power and arrogant immunity of the grossly rich:

"I don’t know if the emails, so far, are enough to take down Trump, but the president should be even more worried — and he probably is —" (continued in /8)

#Trump #EconomicElites #wealth #EconomicDisparity #WealthDistribution #SuperRich #GildedAge #Epstein
/7

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/epstein-emails-trump-summers-elites-20251116.html

"It would be funny if it weren’t so perfectly tragic. The dopey-ist son of a fake billionaire (pre-crypto scams) turned fake president, who likes Gatsby parties and golden toilets, go on oligarch-tv to lecture the struggling masses about how easy it is to move half a billion dollars. While sipping Merlot."

#Trump #EconomicElites #wealth #EconomicDisparity #WealthDistribution #SuperRich #GildedAge
/6

"And now, we’ve arrived at the logical conclusion of all this—Eric Trump, the barking embodiment of dumb-son nepotism. A laughable lout with inherited intellectual necrosis and the empathy of a Terminator wrapped in designer smugness."

#Trump #EconomicElites #wealth #EconomicDisparity #WealthDistribution #SuperRich #GildedAge
/5

Pointing to Eric Trump as the "patron saint of the stupid rich," Cliff Schechter says,

"Hello Second Gilded Age.

An era where a reality-show President with the wit of a drunken walrus would actually fight in court to starve Americans. Yes, Trump argued in court that food our laws required him to give people—so they don’t die—should be denied. So they do."

#Trump #EconomicElites #wealth #EconomicDisparity #WealthDistribution #SuperRich #GildedAge
/4

https://www.blueamp.co/p/end-stage-democracy-has-a-mascot

LA Times: McDonald’s is losing its low-income customers. Economists call it a symptom of the stark wealth divide

"...McDonald’s executives say the higher costs of restaurant essentials, such as beef and salaries, have pushed food prices up and driven away lower-income customers who are already being squeezed by the rising cost of groceries, clothes, rent and child care...."

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-11-16/mcdonalds-is-losing-its-low-income-customers

#economy #wealth

"First, ignore billionaires when they threaten to take their marbles and go home. The big money always responds to threats of tax hikes, or even mere verbal criticism, by threatening to go all Ayn Rand and move to Galt’s Gulch. In reality, they won’t even move to Florida."

#EconomicElites #Mamdani #wealth #EconomicDisparity #WealthDistribution #SuperRich #GildedAge
/3

A visual summary of inequality. Cartoon from last year.

#wealth #poverty #inequality

Wealth

https://saul.pw/mag/wealth/

#HackerNews #Wealth #WealthInequality #EconomicInsights #FinancialLiteracy #PersonalFinance

" #Epstein’s human trafficking organization depended entirely on the wealth management industry (WMI). It was how he obtained the capital to build it, and it was how he hid his activities from the authorities. And none of this was an abuse of the industry; it is precisely how the WMI is designed to work. Nor is it an abuse of the law, because both American and international law has been carefully designed to accomodate the WMI."

#USPol #Politics #Wealth #Capitalism

https://jacobin.com/2025/11/epstein-trafficking-law-taxes-capitalism

" #Epstein’s human trafficking organization depended entirely on the wealth management industry (WMI). It was how he obtained the capital to build it, and it was how he hid his activities from the authorities. And none of this was an abuse of the industry; it is precisely how the WMI is designed to work. Nor is it an abuse of the law, because both American and international law has been carefully designed to accomodate the WMI."

#USPol #Politics #Wealth #Capitalism

https://jacobin.com/2025/11/epstein-trafficking-law-taxes-capitalism

" #Epstein’s human trafficking organization depended entirely on the wealth management industry (WMI). It was how he obtained the capital to build it, and it was how he hid his activities from the authorities. And none of this was an abuse of the industry; it is precisely how the WMI is designed to work. Nor is it an abuse of the law, because both American and international law has been carefully designed to accomodate the WMI."

#USPol #Politics #Wealth #Capitalism

https://jacobin.com/2025/11/epstein-trafficking-law-taxes-capitalism

Norway's Wealth Tax Unchains a Capital Exodus

https://citizenx.com/insights/norway-wealth-exodus/

#HackerNews #Norway #Wealth #Tax #Capital #Exodus #Finance #News #Economy

Just work hard. Today’s cartoon by Tjeerd Royaards. More cartoons: https://www.cartoonmovement.com/

#inheritance #wealth #inequality #poverty