Hilaire Belloc Quotes

We have concentrated wealth and capital to such a degree that the vast majority of us don't have the discretionary dollars to make our economy go and grow.

The United States economy is like a poker game where the chips have become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and where the other fellows can stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit runs out the game will stop.

Historically marginalized populations have already had less access to wealth and credit building opportunities, and the continued use of credit histories to set auto insurance pricing compounds racial discrimination and exacerbates wealth inequality.

Economic inequality is systemic, and one of the most effective barriers is ignorance about how money works beyond the basics.

A capitalist is someone who derives a substantial share of his income from his equity in producing companies. On this scale the figures are discouraging. Approximately ninety percent of the capital of this country is owned by five or less percent of the American people.

The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor.

Lobbyists in Washington are making six figure salaries selling our government out to the corporate interests and we just sit and smile as if nothing is happening while the poor folks are getting poorer and their pharmaceutical bills rise.

It was shocking to realize how many low-income Americans don't have savings accounts.

They fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men.

The value of money is a scam perpetrated by those who have it over those who don't

By some estimates, income and wealth inequality are near their highest levels in the past hundred years, much higher than the average during that time span and probably higher than for much of American history before then.

Could there be anything resembling a free enterprise economy, if wealth and property were concentrated in the hands of a few, while the great majority owned little more than the shirts on their backs?

Politicians learned hundreds of years ago that people who had little material wealth were incredibly jealous of those who had more than they did. This deep-seated envy was ripe for exploitation - and the exploitation has been running rampant for generations.

Why is one man richer than another? Because he is more industrious, more persevering and more sagacious.

Socialism for rich bankers and capitalism for everyone else.

So far rich people have been very quiet about the possibility of getting taxes raised on them, but that doesn't mean they won't get mad about it, it just means they don't know about it. Because it takes a while for bad news to reach a rich person. First their accountant has to tell the butler, who has to tell the servant, who wouldn't dare interrupt their game of croquet.

[T]he strike is inherently dangerous to the rich, and to the corporations who have brought this country to her knees, because it is the only defense the ordinary citizen has.

I tell my children that a man like Bill Gates has a personal fortune of $100 billion. They can't even comprehend that. Then I explain that he has more money than some countries.

It's always the rich and there's plenty to waste, yet still China has a lot of people living in very spare, poor conditions.

The past few decades of widening inequality can be summed up as significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top and stagnant living standards for the majority.

In the first place, it is obvious that not only is wealth concentrated in our times but an immense power and despotic economic dictatorship is consolidated in the hands of a few, who often are not owners but only the trustees and managing directors of invested funds which they administer according to their own arbitrary will and pleasure. This dictatorship is being most forcibly exercised by those who, since they hold the money and completely control it, control credit also and rule the lending of money.

Never in the history of the world have so many people been so rich; never in the history of the world have so many of those same people felt themselves so poor.

The extremes of opulence and of want are more remarkable, and more constantly obvious, in [Great Britain] than in any other place that I ever saw.

The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor.

Someone will always be getting richer faster than you. This is not a tragedy.