It’s not a surprise to me that the Oxfam study revealed an increase in the likelihood of the wealthy controlling half of the global wealth. For one, we live in an increasingly global world in which country lines blur in the realm of economics; for two, the disparity between the upper and lower class is ever-increasing and the difference in wages is dramatic. It reminds me of the semi-crazed assertion that thirteen families control the world through money power that, though a bit conspiratorial for my taste, holds more weight than I’d like to admit. The issue brought up in all of these posts is that of the large disparity between the wealth of the rich and that of the poor, and unfortunately none seem to present a viable option for eradicating this. As “The Party of Wall Street Meets Its Nemesis” puts it: “The struggle is global as well as local in nature.” Is there a way to battle and shrink this wage gap on a local scale that will then affect on a larger one?

This week’s readings, especially the New York times article on the Oxfam study, focus on the widening gap in wealth distribution between the rich and the poor. If one percent of the people will control half of the world’s wealth, the question of why capitalism is still seen as the preferred and dominant economic system is brought to light. When the wealthy control this much of the total money on the planet, there exists the need to write articles like the one on the Billionaires’ Park. Philanthropic acts and charity are acts that are done at the mercy of those who have the financial means to do so. Fixing parks and other public functions are no longer done when they need to be, but rather, when the money for doing so becomes available. This is not to say that ideal systems like communism would work, for we do not exist in an entirely capitalistic society either. The issue then becomes a matter of distributing wealth in the fairest way without causing violent protest (ie: if we just created a mandate to ensure that every person in the USA has only 2,000 dollars to spend every month–something radical like that).

Question: In what way can we best resolve this wealth gap (smoothly and peacefully)? Is such a proposal even possible?

There’s a line near the opening of Callahan’s article this week which explains how a park funded by a billionaire is “just a short walk from his office in Chelsea.” This line has a strong implication which I feel the article overlooks to a degree. Callahan seems accepting of this and other such works as acts of philanthropy, despite the clear ways that they directly benefit the “philanthropist” performing the act. The park built by Barry Diller can just as easily be seen as a personal luxury instead of a public service, especially considering its location in an affluent neighborhood. It’s worrying that wealthy populations are spending so much time just looking out for themselves, even in their charitable acts.

This grows even more worrying when one considers the “rich get richer” numbers which are brought up in Cohen’s article. Wealthy people already enjoy a wide array of luxuries and amenities with no immediate fear of losing them, and it’s appalling that they would still be so greedy as to try expanding that array. I do wonder if the growing income gap is a result of this greed (as opposed to a way to dis-incentivize greed), but I still believe that there should be a balance between self-serving behavior and looking out for those less fortunate.

Income inequality is a huge problem in America. Part of the reason why it has become such a huge problem is because money is power. Those few very wealthy, though a small percentage of Americans, are not willing to give up their money or their power for the sake of the common good. And paradoxically, they have the wealth and power to be able to not give up their wealth power.

I approach this topic with a pessimistic view. Occupy Wall Street was a largely unsuccessful movement because it the root of the problem is our entire economic system, wherein the collection of wealth is the ultimate goal. Though admirable, social and political protests can do little to tackle this dilemma that we have created for ourselves.

What we need is political action, reverse Reganomics. Tax the wealthy and increase the middle, working, and lower classes. Rather than protests, our energy would be put to better use in campaigning and voting for those who could put real policy into action. I simply ask why so little has yet been done to address this current crisis.

Luckily for us, we are starting the topic of income inequality in the very same week that Hillary Clinton announced her 2016 presidential campaign!  Much of her economic policies address the issues discussed in this week’s readings. Their main focus was that much of the power resides with the wealthy 1%. This minority controls society, politics, infrastructure, and public space because of the amount of money they acquire each year. Unfortunately, government policy is either helping to widen the gap or doing nothing to decrease the gap. The article “Oxfam Study Finds Richest 1% Is Likely to Control Half of Global Wealth by 2016,” says that since 2010 the wealth of the poorest half of the world is decreasing while the wealth of the rich 1% is increasing.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign seems to address all of these issues. She mentions that the odds are stacked in favor of the rich and that middle class families need help. She wants to stop the tax cuts for those making over $250,000 so that more money can go into health care and infrastructure. Improving infrastructure for the poorer classes, puts public space back  into the hands of the public. I certainly am ready for Hillary.

Question: If the richest classes control politics, will this be a difficult race for Hillary to win?Source for Hillary Clinton’s policies: http://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/Hillary_Clinton_Budget_+_Economy.htm

Reading these articles is admittedly frustrating. It is frustrating because people realize there is a problem – mounting inequality in the political and economic spheres – but little is being done to remedy it. Sure Occupy Wall Street gave it a go, but it ultimately fizzled out, despite the evocative language used in the #OWS reading. Occupy Wall Street attempted revolutionary change – if the Harvey piece can be believed – yet it failed to deliver despite public support. I fear that the problem is apathy. Thanks to publications like the New York TImes, countless people are aware of the gravity of American income inequality. However, very few people believe there is anything we can actually do to change it. After all, money is power. How are we, the 99%, supposed to change the state of affairs without large sums of cash? How are we supposed to change the dominating principle of money buying power and influence? I don’t know if realistically there is a way to change this; it would mean an ideological paradigm shift. But maybe not believing it is possible is part of the problem.

I hesitate to put it this way, but as a first reaction, did anyone else see that first reading as a kind of cruel joke? A sad depiction of the Occupy movement drowned in satirically punk-ish language that no one can take seriously unless they never grew out of their Crass patches? But at the same time, this article is a kind of window to the past—probably not as good of an aesthetic as windows like Mad Men or something, but true to form. There’s so much hope in that article, and there’s an intelligence there that almost can’t be taken seriously because of the rhetoric. And though now Occupy has fizzled out from a collective shrugging of what they were trying to accomplish—among other reasons, I’m sure—the problems it outlined are still prevalent and, well, terrible. If a giant movement like Occupy couldn’t address those issues, what hope is left? And is my framing of this an example of a post-Occupy world jaded about meaningful political change?

“The Billionaires’ Park” by David Callahan read, very obviously, like an op-ed piece since the author’s argument, in my opinion, was a poor one. On the topic of parks philanthropy, I personally felt that the author diminished his argument when he juxtaposed Diller Island and Central Park with other parks falling into disrepair around the city. The disrepair of other parks is due to a lacking Parks department budget. It is only logical that wealthy donors choose the parks they wish to fund rather than financing the whole Parks department, a government agency (which would further blur the lines between the public and private sector).

“#OWS: The Party of Wall Street Meets its Nemesis” by Henry David begins with a damnation of the “Party of Wall St” delivered in with a religious tone. This religious tone develops into a strong military and war-like one as the author persuades the 99% to join Occupy Wall St in “another American revolution”. Personally, the language and tone of the article was too aggressive to instill my confidence in #OWS. Lastly, I think the article could have been more persuasive if it were combined with Cohen’s New York Times article that used statistics to put global economic inequality in perspective.

Today’s reading was pretty interesting. Community planning. People actively getting involved with the direction their neighbourhood will take. My one complaint is that it takes something drastic for people to start getting interested. The first portion of the reading was listing all these protests and uprisings and battles over urban development, when plans and meetings and projects are all public. Consensus planning doesn’t work in practice and I’m not saying people should go for it, but I’m not a fan of protest, especially when there are so many other ways to get something done. It shouldn’t have to take a protest for people’s voices to be heard, mainly because it really doesn’t have to. Urban plans affect the community, but lately it seems that the community is only interested when the world will fall apart. It doesn’t surprise me that plans then serve the purposes of a select few; they’re probably the ones who pushed them in the first place.

Question: What is your opinion of community planning, and the urban planning process?

Roughly a year ago, the Honors English 1012 class watched a film about Robert Moses’s legacy as an NYC urban planner. The film portrayed Frances Goldin as the leader of the protest against construction of the Lower Manhattan Expressway and the success of this campaign made her a working class hero. Watching the film then and reading about Goldin now, it’s hard to believe that a grass roots movement could have effectively challenged the city government.

Perhaps due to my familiarity with the subject matter, this week’s reading did not appeal to me. I have several criticisms, the first of which is that the first ten pages seem as if they were written to meet a word count rather than provide any useful information. The substantive chunk of the work only begins on page 10. Even still, the author refers to later chapters so frequently, throughout the first chapter, that I’m more interested in reading chapters 2, 3, 4… However, I personally, I found the subsection on rational comprehensive planning to be the most informative. The subsection begins with an explanation of the thought behind this kind of planning, then the author describes the process itself. The author goes on to discuss its application during the Keynesian era followed by the neoliberal era.