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Wealth Inequality in America

Posted: Mar 5, 2013

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wealth inequity - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
You don't say why we should be worrying about this. I fail to see the point. Do you think Oprah or Tom Brady or Jon Stewart should be earning so much more than the average person? What about all the politicians? If they can earn it, good for them. If the CEO can earn it, good for them. Do you really think if wealth is taken from the wealthy you will get it? If you believe that, you are beyond naive.

Are you old enough to remember the USSR? The people were poor as dirt, waiting in lines just for bread. The wealth was taken from throughout the country and given to the government, NOT the people. They were not universally middle class, they were poor. Look at current day China. Sure they show all the big cities and it looks like there is a middle class, but this is not the case. The people in the country as a whole are poor. They have children working in factories. The factories have apartments attached to them so people can go produce for the GOV, not for themselves. They have suicide nets around the apartment buildings because so many were jumping off the buildings, unable to get away from the slavery of the gov. Have you ever been to a 3rd world country and actually seen the REALLY poor. The poorest of the poor have corrupt gov that take ALL the money.

Are you starving? Do you have a roof over your head? Looks like you have a computer, and I suspect a car, TV, clean drinking water. What exactly do you want?

Some of the things I read here, I have to double-check if I'm really on an MT board. - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
Actually, you'd be wrong, I don't have a car or TV. And I make about 2/3 of what I used to, while the CEOs, et al., of M*Modal and Nuance especially (one of which I work for) are making more than ever.

Do I think that any of those celebrities you mentioned deserve or need to make the money they do? No, and I don't think their creative juices would be severely hampered by them making a good deal less, but I don't begrudge any of the actual producers in the entertainment industry making what they do because that's the nature of the beast. I do, however, begrudge the suited leeches who don't really produce the art who make money off of them the same way they do me and my fellow MTs.

I'm most concerned about the future for my child, and hope that she won't end up a wage slave like I am due to the inequity becoming worse and worse. And I worry for the future generations after that as times goes on. That video wasn't advocating the socialism/communism which you gave as examples, by the way. Might want to watch it again.

What I want is just compensation for my effort and skills, which I currently am not receiving. Why would anyone want less than that?

This video lays out what I've read in The Economist and - others as clear as it can be. Please,

[ In Reply To ..]
listen again. I don't know what you thought you heard, but you're not living in an alternate reality. This IS the one you've got.

EXCELLENT, OP. Regarding that on the graph the middle class - is almost indistinguishable from the poor,

[ In Reply To ..]
I was actually observing those effects in real life just yesterday.

DH and I were driving down normal boulevards in our city, and it just occurred to me that everything looked tatty, aging, not well maintained. This was a middle class part of the city, streets lined with middle class stores coursing through middle class neighborhoods.

We normally think of our aging infrastructure in terms of aging bridges, etc., but, in fact, as we put our national wealth into the hands of a few, it's come about that most areas of our nation are deteriorating without proper maintenance.

A mall we ended up at was nice enough, but it wasn't built that long ago. No time to deteriorate.

I'm reminded of what I once learned in a college urban geography class--that the economic life span of the average strip mall in this country is only 10 years. On average, by 10 years the supermarket has moved away and its better satellite stores with it, and the mall now becomes low-rent, if it doesn't stand empty.

Given the upward flow of income away from 80% of people--with it money that would have once been spent in these neighborhood malls, I'm guessing the average life span of healthy economic profit is now less than 10 years.

And, of course, as incomes drop and price rise, people living in the surrounding neighborhoods are now not just less able to upgrade their homes and yards but increasingly less able to maintain them in good condition at all. You know painting less often, letting the gardening service go and ripping out the shrubs they get tired of trimming themselves...

Same for the income of mainstream American towns and cities as incomes drop, and thus taxes paid, drop too.

OTOH, we can drive into neighborhoods where the top 20% live (the top 10% less accessible), and the streets are exquisitely maintained and landscaped. Same for malls that serve them. But I can see the day when the top 10% will only be found in a few enclaves nice enough for them in this nation, and others. Mostly on the coasts, close to private airports. They wouldn't be any more charmed than I was to routinely drive through the city I was observing--and that's in its current state.

The 1% who actually own half our national wealth? We never see them, and they don't see us--that "indistinguishable" lower classes thing.

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