I feel like this is the equivalent of people who live in their car in America. People who's work is enough to feed them but not to house them. I live in the heart of Silicon valley when I go out at night I inevitably see car after car with someone sleeping in it, and the back seat filled with what I can only imagine is their only earthly possessions.

There are so many people living like this even in one of the richest places in the US, I can only imagine what it's like in areas with a lower concentration of wealth.

How does Stephen know Trump is the richest president ever elected? Because Trump said so with no evidence?

So, I guess when Russia invades more Balkan countries Trump is going to take Putin's word that they aren't, just like they weren't in Crimea.

It's going to be an interesting 4 years. It's probably a good time to invest in Russian currency.

all gains in productivity goes straight to the richest people

If I believed it would have that effect, I could support that.
Unfortunately, I don't believe Americans would ever get off our swollen asses, turn off our TVs, and actually DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE, even while our country disintegrates around us.
And even if we could manage it, we are so fractured as a society, the end result at best would be somewhere between 4 and 50 new countries, most of them with despotic leaders and draconian theocracies, and all born from a devastating civil war. There no way in hell we could manage to have a revolution that ends with a single, unified country.

In reality, what's more likely to happen if he's elected is a few large protests that get broken up violently with many protesters 'disappearing', new harsh anti-protesting laws, and President for Life Trump will become the richest man in the world while we become a third world country, bringing the world economy into the toilet with us, which is what the Economist warned against when they just listed him in the top 15 most pressing dangers to the world, ranking a Trump presidency just as dangerous to the planet as fundamentalist terrorism.

Sorry, but I still can't understand. We obviously don't get to wish away history and just declare America and everybody else should've allowed more Jewish immigration and thus the Jew's that fled to Palestine were illegitimate. If we are wishing, we might as well go all out for an alternate history where Hitler and the Nazi's respected human rights and strove for peace.

Fact is that millions of Jews were trying to flee persecution in Europe(and not just the Nazi's, they were just the worst of the bunch). Fact is that the nations of the world, just like today and always, didn't want to take in nearly that many refugees. They allowed in the smartest and the richest, and that was about the line that was drawn. Truly, I can not blame the still million plus Jews with nowhere to legally escape to choosing illegal immigration to locations deemed safer for them and their families. With Palestine already having a sizable Jewish population and being closer than many other places, it made perfect sense for them to flee there. I really can't see any rational objection to this you've raised save for declaring their situation NOT that desperate or that magically we should've changed history and had everyone else act better, which plainly wasn't something the European Jews could rely upon.

As to theft of land, prior to the total outbreak of civil war in Palestine, it cut both ways. You again seem to refuse to acknowledge this. It was not just the Jews unfairly and violently dealing with the Arab Palestinians, but it was equally Arab Palestinians doing the EXACT same to the Jewish Palestinians. With the British pulling out, both parties were grabbing for land and power. You talk as though the Arab Palestinians were standing there holding out roses and snacks for the Jewish Palestinians only to find themselves shot down for the favour.

After the break out of civil war the Jewish Palestinians and refugees absolutely gained more land than they had at the outset. That is hardly the only time in history that a civil war worked out that way though. More over, when Israel accepted the UN 2 state solution, it was the Arabs that refused, allied with the surrounding Arab state to grossly outnumber the fledgling Jewish state and swore to drive the Jews into the sea. The exact quote is from Azzam Pasha, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, who declared "We will sweep them into the sea". When that war ended, Israel was even larger than when the war started. If that counts as 'stealing' land I think your a little too lose with your definitions. When a much larger alliance of nations tries to destroy a smaller one, is it really expected that the smaller nation return all land it gained as a manner of good behaviour?

This is perfect! I can't wait for the oligarch fireworks!

"And the goes one of the richest men on the planet up into space! He's payed ov.... BOOOOOOOM!"

<cheering>

The more I watch John Oliver's show, the more I think the US are a terrible, terrible place to live. He makes it sound like the richest 3rd world country on earth.

I am guessing the richest company on Earth did not need to fret over a billion dollars worth of acreage.

Your video, richest family in america should not be on welfare, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Many of the "richest families in America" got to be that way because their businesses received subsidies and/or other crony favors. This is an undesirable situation for anyone (besides the cronies and politicians/bureaucrats, themselves). It's better to have wealthy families that are "wealthy" because their businesses deliver quality and service, not because they happen to be cronies.

Businesses that subsist because of cronyism (like the countries' largest banks, for example) should, in fact, collapse... Like GM should have collapsed back in 2008.

And all state subsidies should end.

Not the entire rest, actually. Just the pro-austerity forces currently running the show (Germany, Finland, Netherlands, Austria, etc). Syriza have strong support in Spain (Podemos), France and Italy, the three major countries on the receiving end of austerity.

If Varoufakis' analysis of the situation in Europe is correct, almost everything the troika (ECB, IMF, European Commission) has done since the beginning of the crisis was counterproductive and the underlying economic theories were wrong, plain and simple.

It would be an open challenge to conservative ideology in European governments and to a sort of market fundamentalism that has been the overwhelming drive behind most major policies enacted over the last two decades, particularly in the last seven years.

Can't have that. The Emperor is not naked. Greece is not bankrupt, austerity leads to growth and deflation poses no risk.

25% unemployment, 50+% youth unemployment, GDP down by 25%, poverty through the roof, dumpster diving on the richest continent on the planet -- whatever led to this (hint: austerity) needs a special place on the wall of things never to be done again.

Yet they want to implement it in France and Italy as well, which is why the conflict with Greece is actually a high stakes game about the future of the entire Eurozone.

Like I said, my own views are heavily biased against austerity for a multitude of reasons. And to see my own government forcing it upon significant parts of the continent makes me sick.

During Carter's single term in office, Iran became a fundamentalist terror state, Saddam began his coup that led to the Iran-Iraq war-Hostage crisis?? Hello?? He gave the Sandinista cash for their fun-in-the-sun-OH-He gave away the Panama Canal, right? Claimed that the Soviets were no longer a 'threat' and they marched right on into Afghanistan. He set-up foreign policy for the next wave of presidential failures and shills for the assholes who really run the show, you know them by their smell, the richest gadjillionaires in the world, who have stolen humanity's hope for anything but anarchy or global fascism and world-government control and surveillance-state, in the form of what the world is fast-becoming. Yeah, the old peanut farmer was was a real piece of work.

Wake up people, the United States presidency has been a ruse for close to fifty years.

@speechless Agreed.

The 6 Walton heirs have more wealth that bottom 50% of Americans.
Ditto for the U.K.
U.S. companies have $1.5 Trillion off-shore. Money that should be circulating in the economy.
85 richest people are as wealthy as the poorest half of the world

The problem and solution are obvious.

how can some of you NOT see the obvious?
you think this is about law and permits?
fucking seriously???

this is a politically targeted strategy to remove the eye-sore that is a homeless person from the tender eyeballs of over-privileged fuckheads.
the ever changing laws are CREATED to do just that,and chaos is so right,most cops HATE having to be the ones enforcing these demeaning,dehumanizing laws.

at least hard-core right wing nutbags have the balls to openly despise the poor,but treehugging liberals just cant stomach seeing the wretched openly walking their streets.
they know they exist...
they fret,weep and wring their hands for those poor souls but to actually SEE them?
well,that kind of reality is just too much for their tender sensibilities.
so they criminalize being poor.

hypocritical assholes..the lot of them.

i have lived all over,from boston to san diego and broward county is,by far,the richest i have ever lived in.

but it is mainly a tourist city,so they cant have bums sleeping on the sidewalk or begging for change at the intersections.what would the vacationing swedish family think?
i mean...the horror..the absolute horror!

so they create laws to criminalize the poor in order to sweep them under the rug.just like your momma used to make you clean your room before aunt florence came over.

it is morally bankrupt and ethically repugnant.

god DAMN this pisses me off to no end!
/rant OFF

safety issues?
permits?
fuck me,the dumb is strong here...........

There is sort of already a World Senate, and it has to do with Corporations and Financial interests. If a country does something that is "Bad for Business" then corporations or banks with just take out whatever they can and suddenly the countries economy will scream and this has real consequences.

Even America is not immune it seams and the completely anti-social Republicans who aren't even a political party anymore since they stopped representing all but the richest in the country, are going to help them. This brings about another way in which those with money can destroy people. They must be stopped.