monetary fascism - the rise of the financial industrial congressional complex

counterpunch | Challenging Monetary Fascism is much more dangerous for political leaders representing countries outside the G-20.  Populist leaders who put forward Nationalist policies are automatically in violation of one or more international ‘free trade’ agreements.  Non-conformity with these agreements ultimately results in trade sanctions, IMF or World Bank imposed austerity, or worse…

Friedman’s ideology is global and his rules of ‘free trade’ are deeply integrated into the laws of international trade.  All of our Nation’s international treaties on trade and banking are a series of interlocking agreements that force all nations to subvert their sovereignty and conform to Monetary Fascism.  It is a global pandemic built on a world-wide transmission system with universal powers of enforcement.  Sovereign Nations comply or they lose their credit rating.  Considering the world wide mass escalation of debt to GDP for most western nations, a small increase in the cost of borrowing would easily result in default and bankruptcy.

Today, Nation States face nothing less than financial Armageddon – the Sampson Option, if they do not comply with the demands of the global banking industry.  And it is with this weapon that the Financial Class has come to dominate the State.

Forget Al Qaeda, the only legitimate threat to U.S. and international security is the financial class.  They have created Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction (Financial WMDs) and they stand ready to take down the world economy.  They are more dangerous than any ‘terrorist group’, or even all of the ‘terrorist groups combined.

Exaggeration – consider what Friedman’s ‘free market’ banking system has done to Iceland, Ireland, Spain, Greece, Estonia, etc.  How many western nations has Islam overthrown?  Not one, and by comparison that should scare you.

Money has become the state and the traditional state is forced to serve money’s interests.  Everywhere the Financial Class is openly lording over sovereign nations.  Ireland, Greece and Spain are subject to ultimatums and remember Hank Paulson’s $700 billion extortion from the U.S. Congress.  The $700 billion was just the wedge.  Thanks to unlimited access to the Discount Window, Quantitative Easing and other taxpayer funded debt-swap bailouts the total transfers to the financial industry exceeded $16 trillion as of July 2010 according to a Federal Reserve Audit.  All of this was dumped on the taxpayer and it is still growing.

Why must the people of Ireland or Iceland accept the losses of the private banking sector as a public obligation?  Why must Greece accept austerity because its politician’s entered into a series of deals structured by Goldman Sachs specifically designed to deceive its EU partners?  If Goldman Sachs authored documents with the intent of fraud then Goldman Sachs is required to bear the losses and prosecution.  The taxpayer had no hand in this.

It is breathtaking.  Within the last 40 years ‘money’ has gained total control of each and every one of us.  Generations to come will enter this world burdened with the debts of their fathers.  It is inescapable and ubiquitous.  More than just a spider’s web, or a money-sucking vampire squid, it is a global pandemic that infects our very DNA.  It is the Original Sin of money – subject to compound interest, converted into a derivative, hypothecated and rolled into a CMO and then leveraged through CDSs.

The uber-wealthy will continue to aggregate wealth.  The banking system will continue to make ‘risk free bets,’ booking gains and shifting the losses to the public.  As these losses accumulate on the public balance sheet the state will be forced to seek austerity measures from the public. As austerity and debt levels increase the global economy will continue ‘circling of the bowl’ with increasing speed until we suddenly plunge into the vortex.

european politicos protest doj wikileaks-twitter probe

CNET | On Friday, Twitter notified a handful of its subscribers with ties to Wikileaks that the U.S. Justice Department had obtained a court order for their "subscriber account information." The order covers accounts linked to Wikileaks including those of Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private accused of leaking classified documents; Seattle-based Wikileaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum; Dutch hacker and XS4ALL Internet provider co-founder Rop Gonggrijp; and Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic parliament.

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe hosted Assange and Jónsdóttir at an event in July 2010 devoted to protecting free speech. (Iceland enjoys close economic ties with the EU and has applied for full membership.)

We defend "the right to offend which is an essential part of freedom of expression, and we will stand with those who come under pressure to freely express their views," Alexander Lambsdorff, a member of the European Parliament from Germany, said at the event.

Around the same time, the U.S. government began a criminal investigation of Wikileaks and Assange after the Web site began releasing what would become a deluge of confidential military and State Department files. In November, Attorney General Eric Holder said that the probe is "ongoing," and a few weeks later an attorney for Assange said he had been told that a grand jury had been empaneled in Alexandria, Va.

The court order to Twitter (PDF), signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan in Alexandria, Va., is the first public evidence of this investigation. The San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, CNET previously reported, will represent Jónsdóttir (but not the other account holders) and oppose the court order sought by prosecutors.

"It sort of feels to me as if they've become quite desperate," Jónsdóttir said at an conference in Canada today, referring to the Justice Department. She said prosecutors shouldn't expect to obtain much from accounts used by such a security-conscious, encryption-savvy cadre of activists: "None of us would ever use Twitter messaging to say anything sensitive."

Prosecutors send subpoenas to and serve other legal process on Web sites and Internet service providers every day. But because Jónsdóttir is one of 63 members of Iceland's national parliament who serves on the foreign affairs committee, the order appears to have caused an international diplomatic incident outside of Europe as well: last weekend, the Icelandic government summoned U.S. ambassador Luis Arreaga to a meeting.

Earlier today, P.J. Crowley, the U.S. State Department's spokesman, gave a speech in Washington, D.C. that defended the Obama administration's legal pursuit of Wikileaks:

WikiLeaks is about the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. It is not an exercise in Internet freedom. It is about the legitimate investigation of a crime. It is about the need to continue to protect sensitive information while enabling the free flow of public information...

We remain arguably the most transparent society in the world. The American people, through innovations including C-SPAN, are a well-informed citizenry, which is crucial to a functioning democracy. We can have a discussion about how well our democracy is functioning, and whether political figures are spending more time pandering or posturing on television than actually governing.

We are a nation of laws, and the laws of our country have been violated. Since we function under the rule of law, it is appropriate and necessary that we investigate and prosecute those who have violated U.S law. Some have suggested that the ongoing investigation marks a retreat from our commitment to freedom of expression, freedom of the press and Internet freedom. Nonsense. These are universal principles and our commitment is unwavering.

A preliminary legal brief (PDF) that Assange's lawyers filed with the London court today takes issue with that characterization of the U.S. legal system, arguing: "If Mr. Assange were rendered to the USA, without assurances that the death penalty would not be carried out, there is a real risk that he could be made subject to the death penalty. It is well-known that prominent figures have implied, if not stated outright, that Mr. Assange should be executed."

we are not iceland, we are not dubai!!!

NYTimes | Greece struggles to stay afloat as debts pile on. Ever since Greece’s credit rating was downgraded last week, its new Socialist government has fought back, saying it has the mettle to tackle the soaring deficit and structural woes that have earned the country a reputation as the weak link in the euro zone.

“We will reduce the deficit, we will control the debt and there will be no need for a bailout,” the Greek finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, said in an interview in his office here this week. “We are not Iceland; we are not Dubai.”

But Mr. Papaconstantinou may have good reason for the traditional Greek metal worry beads he fingered during the interview. Outside his office, garbage was piled high in Syntagma Square, a result of a two-week strike by trash collectors that ended Friday.

A student demonstration was advancing on the square a day after pensioners had taken to the streets. This week, protests for the first anniversary of the death of an Athenian teenager shot by the police turned violent, but did not cause as much damage as disturbances last year.

Common in Greece even during better times, such protests are expected to increase drastically once the government introduces austerity measures in its 2010 budget, including wage freezes and measures to scale back public sector hiring, steps it says are needed to bring Greece’s finances under control.

Denmark Suspended Use Of The Astrazeneca mRNA Jabs

NYTimes |  Denmark suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine because of concerns about possible links to an increased risk of blood clots, the Danish Health Authority announced on Thursday. Iceland and Norway later also announced suspensions in administering the shots.

Danish authorities said all use of the vaccine in the country would be halted for at least 14 days after several severe cases of clots were reported among people who had received the shot, the national broadcaster DR reported.

Still, Danish health officials said they could not yet know if the clots — including a case in which a patient died — were caused by the vaccine, and that an investigation was launched to be “on the safe side.”

Within hours, the European Medicines Agency said in a statement that there is currently no indication the vaccine “has caused these conditions.” The agency, which is Europe’s main drug regulator, said the vaccine’s benefits continue to outweigh its risks, and countries can continue to administer the vaccine while the cases of blood clots are investigated.

The agency’s safety committee is already looking into all cases involving blood clots reported after AstraZeneca vaccinations.

Amid the flurry of suspensions, the Netherlands announced that it would continue to administer the AstraZeneca vaccine despite the concerns voiced by other countries.

The company did not have an immediate response to the suspensions.

Magnus Heunicke, the Danish minister of health, posted a message on Twitter confirming that the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine had been suspended, “following a signal of possible serious side effects in the form of fatal blood clots.”

 

SO Much Harm To SO Many People - And Now The Harm Is Mandatory?

westernjournal |  New concerns are being raised about side effects from the Moderna vaccine against the coronavirus.

Swedish health officials have now decided that a moratorium on giving the Moderna vaccine to anyone under 31 will be extended indefinitely, the U.K. Daily Mail reported. The pause on the Moderna shots had been scheduled to end on Dec. 1.

Finland, Iceland and Denmark have taken similar steps. Norway is encouraging men under 30 not to get the Moderna shot, but is not mandating it.

For months, the Moderna vaccine has been under scrutiny because of data that shows young men who receive it are at increased risk for myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac around the heart.

The Daily Mail reported that one U.S. study that has not yet been peer-reviewed concluded that “young males under [age] 20 are up to six times more likely to develop myocarditis after contracting COVID-19 than those who have been vaccinated.”

The decision comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is putting Moderna’s plans for a shot aimed at the population from age 12 to 17 on hold due to concerns over risks of the ailments, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Although a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel on Thursday approved boosters for the Moderna and Johnson & Johson vaccines, there were some cautions raised, according to CNBC.

Dr. Tom Shimabukuro said there is an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis with either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, in particular after the second dose of the vaccines.

According to the Daily Mail, the data indicated the risk was 13 times greater for those getting the Moderna vaccine than for those who got the Pfizer vaccine.

 

Eastern Europe Adrift

The Economist | WILL an ex-communist country be the next Iceland? The dramatic collapse of that country’s economy, endangering savings from hapless depositors in Britain and elsewhere, has highlighted other risky but obscure corners of the world’s financial system. The stability of the Ukrainian hryvnia, the implications of the Latvian property crash and Hungarians’ troubling penchant for loans in Swiss francs are among the exotic topics now crowding policymakers’ desks.

Countries such as the ex-communist ones in eastern Europe are particularly at risk during periods of financial turmoil. First, because the counterpart of soaring foreign investment has been gaping current-account deficits (Latvia’s, for example, peaked at 26% of GDP in the third quarter of last year). Second, their central banks and governments are unlikely to be able to muster the financial firepower now being deployed in the big economies of the West. Already a couple of banks have toppled; stockmarkets have plunged, wiping out years of savings and hitting balance-sheets. The price of credit-default swaps—the market’s estimation of a borrower’s creditworthiness—ranges from the reassuring to the alarming (see map). As worries intensified, Hungary’s central bank on October 22nd raised interest rates from 8.5% to 11.5%.

For countries that have benefited from big flows of outside money, delivered by a highly leveraged global financial system, the mix of problems looks scary. Those big current-account deficits in every country save Russia suggest they may be living beyond their means. Some (but not all) have public or private sectors with big foreign debts; these may be hard to refinance. Some (again, not always the same ones) have wobbly banks and large state deficits. At best, the region is in for more nasty shocks that will need external support from lenders such as the IMF. At worst, some countries face debt restructuring, currency collapse and depression; that raises the spectre of political upheaval, too.

speaking out against brazenly abusive members of the fascist ruling-class will soon be hate speech!!!

theintercept |  Adoption of this “anti-Semitism” definition clearly would function to prohibit the advocacy of, say, a one-state solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict, or even the questioning of a state’s right to exist as a non-secular entity. How can anyone think it’s appropriate to declare such ideas off limits in academic classrooms or outlaw them as part of campus activism?

To ban the expression of any political ideas in such a setting would not only be wildly anti-intellectual but also patently unconstitutional. As UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky put it today in an LA Times op-ed: “There unquestionably is a 1st Amendment right to argue against (or for) the existence of Israel or to contend that it should meet (or not have to meet) higher standards of human rights than other nations.” Even the now-retired Executive Director of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman — while arguing that “the effort to support boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, is sinister and malicious and is having a negative effect on Jewish students on some campuses and on the wider Jewish community” — acknowledged in May that such bans would be clearly unconstitutional:

Legislation that bars BDS activity by private groups, whether corporations or universities, strikes at the heart of First Amendment-protected free speech, will be challenged in the courts and is likely to be struck down. A decision by a private body to boycott Israel, as despicable as it may be, is protected by our Constitution. Perhaps in Europe, where hate speech laws exist and are acceptable within their own legal frameworks, such bills could be sustained. But not here in America. But none of that seems to matter to Dianne Feinstein and her war-profiteering husband, Richard Blum. Not only is Blum demanding adoption of the State Department definition, despite the fact that (more accurately: because) it would encompass some forms of BDS activism and even criticisms of Israel. 

But, worse, he’s also insisting that it be binding and that students who express the ideas that fall within the State Department definition be suspended from school or expelled. And he’s overtly threatening that if he does not get his way, then his wife 0- “Your Senior Senator” — will get very upset and start publicly attacking the university, a threat that public school administrators who rely on the government for their budgets take very seriously.

This behavior is as adolescent as it is despotic. Does anyone believe that college and post-graduate students should be able to express only those ideas about Israel that Dianne Feinstein and her war-profiteering husband deem acceptable?

It’s no mystery what this is really about. The Israeli government and its most devoted advocates around the world are petrified at the growing strength of the movement to boycott Israeli goods in protest of the almost five-decade occupation. As Foxman conceded, the boycott idea “seems to be picking up steam, particularly on college campuses across the United States. While no universities have yet adopted or implemented BDS, there are a growing number of campuses — now up to 29 — where student organizations have held votes to determine whether they support BDS.” Just this week, the City Council of Reykjavik, the largest city in Iceland,voted to boycott all Israeli goods as long as the occupation persists (days later, the City quickly retracted the vote, citing the unexpectedly intense “backlash” from Israel).

Brandon's Karenwaffen NeoVaccinoidal Schismogenesis

theatlantic |  To understand how ideologically scrambling the Omicron wave has been, consider this: Some 2022 Democrats are sounding like 2020 Republicans. In spring 2020, many Republicans, including President Donald Trump, insisted that COVID was hardly worse than the flu; that its fatality risk was comparable to an everyday activity, like driving in a car; and that an obsessive focus on cases wouldn’t give an accurate picture of what was going on in the pandemic.

In the current Omicron wave, these Republican talking points seem to have mostly come true—for most vaccinated non-senior adults, who are disproportionately Democrats.

But Democratic talking points about the severity of COVID and the need for commensurate caution remain valid and not only for the sick and elderly. Ironically, they are especially true for the unvaccinated—a disproportionately Republican group that has seen their hospitalization rates soar this winter to all-time highs. About 9,000 Americans are dying of COVID every week. Preliminary state data suggest that more than 90 percent of today’s deaths are still among unvaccinated people. This year, COVID is on pace to kill more than 300,000 unvaccinated people who would, quite likely, avoid death by getting two or three shots.

Read: Should I just get Omicron over with?

The messiness of Omicron data—record-high cases! but much milder illness!—has deepened our COVID Rashomon, in which different communities are telling themselves different stories about what’s going on, and coming to different conclusions about how to lead their lives. That’s true even within populations that, a year ago, were united in their desire to take the pandemic seriously and were outraged by those who refused to do so.

A virus that seems both pervasive and mild offers an opening to people who are, let’s call them, “vaxxed and done.” The attitude of the VADs is this:

For more than a year, I did everything that public-health authorities told me to do. I wore masks. I canceled vacations. I made sacrifices. I got vaccinated. I got boosted. I’m happy to get boosted again. But this virus doesn’t stop. Year over year, the infections don’t decrease. Instead, virulence for people like me is decreasing, either because the virus is changing, or because of growing population immunity, or both. Americans should stop pointlessly guilting themselves about all these cases. In the past week, daily confirmed COVID cases per capita were higher than the U.S. in Ireland, Greece, Iceland, Denmark, France, the U.K., Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and even Australia, one of the most COVID-cautious countries in the world. As the coronavirus continues its unstoppable march toward endemicity, our attitude toward the virus should follow a similar path toward stoicism. COVID is becoming something like the seasonal flu for most people who keep up with their shots, so I’m prepared to treat this like I’ve treated the flu: by basically not worrying about it and living my life normally.

It’s hard to put a number on how many people are in this group, but we have some hard data to prove that their ranks are growing. This past December, airports processed twice as many travelers compared with the same period in 2020, despite many flights being canceled. On several days, TSA-checkpoint numbers exceeded their totals from pre-pandemic 2019. This is not the picture of a country that is hunkering down for Omicron. It is the limited snapshot of a mostly vaccinated population with millions of people who are eager to move on.

I have a lot of sympathy for this group’s case, especially as it relates to schools. The risk of COVID to vaccinated teachers and even unvaccinated students seems lower than we initially thought. Meanwhile, the costs of remote schooling seem higher than we feared. The White House and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona have come out strongly in support of keeping schools open. Other Democratic leaders, like Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, are fighting reluctant teachers to keep school in person. Even among pro-vaccine Americans, a growing number of people seem to be saying they are done with remote school as a baseline COVID policy.

snowden: statement and asylum applications...,

wikileaks | One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many. Edward Joseph Snowden

wikileaks | On 30th June 2013 WikiLeaks’ legal advisor in the Edward Snowden matter, Sarah Harrison, submitted by hand a number of requests for asylum and asylum assistance on behalf of Edward J. Snowden, the NSA whistleblower.

The requests were delivered to an official at the Russian consulate at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow late in the evening. The documents outline the risks of persecution Mr Snowden faces in the United States and have started to be delivered by the Russian consulate to the relevant embassies in Moscow.

The requests were made to a number of countries including the Republic of Austria, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba, the Republic of Finland, the French Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of India, the Italian Republic, the Republic of Ireland, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of Nicaragua, the Kingdom of Norway, the Republic of Poland, the Russian Federation, the Kingdom of Spain, the Swiss Confederation and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The requests join or update others previously made including to the Republic of Ecuador and the Republic of Iceland.

will scotland imitate iceland and free itself from the vampire squid?

medialens |  Craig Murray was scathing about the leaders of the main Westminster political parties, and their last-ditch desperate trip to Scotland last Wednesday to 'save the Union':

'Cameron, Miliband and Clegg. Just typing the names is depressing. As part of their long matured and carefully prepared campaign plan (founded 9 September 2014) they are coming together to Scotland tomorrow to campaign. In a brilliant twist, they will all come on the same day but not appear together. This will prevent the public from noticing that they all represent precisely the same interests.'

Murray nailed what is at stake when he said that the 'three amigos' 'offer no actual policy choice to voters', and he gave a list showing how tightly they march together:

'They all support austerity budgets
They all support benefit cuts
They all support tuition fees
They all support Trident missiles
They all support continued NHS privatisation
They all support bank bail-outs
They all support detention without trial for "terrorist suspects"
They all support more bombings in Iraq
They all oppose rail nationalisation'

In short:

'The areas on which the three amigos differ are infinitesimal and contrived. They actually represent the same paymasters and vested interests.'

These 'paymasters and vested interests' are surely trembling with fear at the power now residing in the hands of voters in Scotland. As George Monbiot observes:

'A yes vote in Scotland would unleash the most dangerous thing of all - hope.'

He expands:

'If Scotland becomes independent, it will be despite the efforts of almost the entire UK establishment. It will be because social media has defeated the corporate media. It will be a victory for citizens over the Westminster machine, for shoes over helicopters. It will show that a sufficiently inspiring idea can cut through bribes and blackmail, through threats and fear-mongering. That hope, marginalised at first, can spread across a nation, defying all attempts to suppress it.'

Whatever happens on Thursday, skewed media performance on Scottish independence - in particular, from the BBC - has helped huge numbers of people see ever more clearly the deep bias in corporate news media.

Gini Coefficient by Country 2022

Botswana

Gini % - World Bank: 53.3

Data Year (World Bank): 2015

Gini % - CIA World Factbook: 53.3

Data Year (CIA): 2015

The Gini coefficient, also called the Gini index or Gini ratio, is the most commonly used measure of income distribution—simply put, the higher the Gini coefficient, the greater the gap between the incomes of a country's richest and poorest people. A country's Gini coefficient is important because it helps identify high levels of income inequality, which can have several undesirable political and economic impacts. These include slower GDP growth, reduced income mobility, greater household debt, political polarization, and higher poverty rates.

Explaining the Gini coefficient

Developed by Italian statistician Corrado Gini in 1912, the Gini coefficient ranges from 0 to 1, but is often written as a percentage. To offer two hypothetical examples, if a nation were to have absolute income equality, with every person earning the same amount, its Gini score would be 0 (0%). On the other hand, if one person earned all the income in a nation and the rest earned zero, the Gini coefficient would be 1 (100%). Mathematically, the Gini coefficient is defined based on the Lorenz curve. The Lorenz curve plots the percentiles of the population on the graph's horizontal axis according to income or wealth, whichever is being measured. The cumulative income or wealth of the population is plotted on the vertical axis.

Limitations of the Gini coefficient

While the Gini coefficient is a useful tool for analyzing the wealth or income distribution in a country, it does not indicate that country's overall wealth or income. Some of the world's poorest countries, such as the Central African Republic, have some of the highest Gini coefficients (61.3 in this case). A high-income country and a low-income country can have the same Gini coefficients. Additionally, due to limitations such as reliable GDP and income data, the Gini index may overstate income inequality and be inaccurate.

Countries with the highest and lowest Gini coefficients

South Africa ranks as the country with the lowest level of income equality in the world, thanks to a Gini coefficient of 63.0 when last measured in 2014. That said, in 2005, the Gini coefficient was even higher, at 65.0. In South Africa, the richest 10% hold 71% of the wealth, while the poorest 60% hold just 7% of the wealth. Additionally, more than half of South Africa's population lives in poverty.

Top 10 Countries with the Highest Gini Coefficients (%) - World Bank:

1. South Africa - 2014 - 63.0
2. Namibia - 2015 - 59.1
3. Suriname - 1999 - 57.9
4. Zambia - 2015 - 57.1
5. Sao Tome and Principe - 2017 - 56.3
6. Central African Republic - 2008 - 56.2
7. Eswatini - 2016 - 54.6
8. Mozambique - 2014 - 54.0
9. Brazil - 2019 - 53.4
10. Belize - 1999 - 53.3

Now for the good news:

Top 10 Countries with the Lowest Gini Coefficients (%) - World Bank:

1. Slovenia - 2018 - 24.6
2. Czech Republic - 2018 - 25.0 (tie)
3. Slovakia - 2018 - 25.0 (tie)
4. Belarus - 2019 - 25.3
5. Moldova - 2018 - 25.7
6. United Arab Emirates - 2018 - 26.0
7. Iceland - 2017 - 26.1
8. Azerbaijan - 2005 - 26.6 (tie)
9. Ukraine - 2019 - 26.6 (tie)
10. Belgium - 2018 - 27.2