Award-winning journalist and best-selling author Linda McQuaig presents her latest book, The Trouble with Billionaires: Why Too Much Money at the Top is Bad for Everyone, on Thursday and Friday.
McQuaig's latest book chronicles the rise of the incredibly rich over the past 30 years and examines the implications for the rest of us and for democracy.
The glittering lives of billionaires may seem like a harmless source of entertainment, but McQuaig (described by the The National Post, as "Canada's Michael Moore"), argues that such concentrated economic power not only threatens the economic and social well-being of the rest of society, but also upsets the very functioning of democracy.
In the last decade, the concentration of income in the United States, Britain and Canada has reached historic highs.
McQuaig argues it's no accident that the extreme inequality of 2008 was virtually identical to that of 1929, creating a dynamic in both those years that resulted in devastating Wall Street crashes.
It's also no coincidence, she says, that while the United States claims the most billionaires, among developed countries it suffers one of the highest rates of infant mortality and crime, the shortest life expectancy, and the lowest rates of social mobility and electoral participation.
Residents and students alike are invited to join McQuaig's Thursday Feb. 3 presentation, The Trouble With Billionaires, from 7 to 9 p.m. at UNBC Weldwood Theatre Room 7-238.
And on Friday Feb. 4, she presents The Damaging Impact of the Rise of a Global Class of Billionaires from noon to 1:30 p.m. at UNBC's Senate, ADM 1079.
