Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 89 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
General News    H1'ed 12/20/15

Chuck Collins -- Wealth Inequality. Billionaires and Psychopaths; Interview Transcript

By       (Page 1 of 13 pages)   6 comments, 4 series
Follow Me on Twitter     Message Rob Kall
Become a Fan
  (295 fans)

Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins
(Image by Chuck Collins)
  Details   DMCA

This is a transcript of this radio interview, Chuck Collins- Wealth Inequality, Billionaires and Psychopaths, which was broadcast on December 2, 2015

Thanks to Tsara Shelton for helping with the transcript editing.

Rob: Welcome to Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show sponsored by opednews.com. My guest tonight, a return guest, is Chuck Collins. He is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, co-editor for inequality.org and he's written several books. The more recent ones are 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It. And a book co-authored with Bill Gates' dad titled Wealth and Our Commonwealth. I'm having him back on the show because he just co-authored a report titled Billionaire Bonanza: The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us. Welcome back.

CC: Hey thanks for having me Rob.

Rob: It's a pleasure. So this is a powerful report. I want to get into the report and then I want to go some places where I've done a lot of writing about billionaires and extreme wealth lately, or the ultra rich. So can you give us a summary of what's in the report?

CC: Sure, what we looked at was how wealth is concentrating in fewer and fewer hands. You know, a few years ago we talked about the 99 to 1. In the last few years we've learned that most of the income and wealth gains have gone to the top one-tenth of one percent. And now we're seeing huge concentrations flowing up to the billionaires, to the Forbes 400, to the tippy toppy of the wealth space needle. And so one of our findings is the wealthiest twenty individuals now, enough that could fit on Gulfstream 650 private jet. 200, 20 people have as much wealth as the bottom half of the US households. So 20 people have more wealth than half the population combined.

Rob: Incredible. And you give a lot of additional stats related to different racial populations, it's even worse for African Americans and Latinos.

CC: Yeah we wanted to look at, because we know that, again in the last ten years there's been a growing wealth divide. After the economic meltdown of 2008, there's kind of an implosion of African American wealth, there's many people lost their homes, or lost home equity. So the Forbes 400, again that wealthiest 400 individuals today has more wealth than the entire African American population, plus about a third of the Latino population combined. Sixty million people. That is just a reflection, because there are very few people of color on the Forbes 400 list. So we're talking about essentially, mostly, enormous concentration of white wealth ownership. That has a real impact on the rest of us.

Next Page  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8  |  9  |  10  |  11  |  12  |  13

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Must Read 2   Well Said 1   Supported 1  
Rate It | View Ratings

Rob Kall Social Media Pages: Facebook Page       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect, connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune 500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful people on his Bottom Up Radio Show, and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
 

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Follow Me on Twitter     Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Other Series: View All 46 Articles in "The No Billionaires, De-Billionairize the Planet Crusade"

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

A Conspiracy Conspiracy Theory

Debunking Hillary's Specious Winning the Popular Vote Claim

Terrifying Video: "I Don't Need a Warrant, Ma'am, Under Federal Law"

Ray McGovern Discusses Brutal Arrest at Secretary Clinton's Internet Freedom Speech

Hillary's Disingenuous Claim That She's Won 2.5 Million More Votes is Bogus. Here's why

Cindy Sheehan Bugged in Denver

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend