Why there’s a growing divide between poor and rich
The current economic system is broken beyond belief and not only in the US but also in Europe, Australia and in Asia. I’ve been researching this issue for years (privately) because I was appalled by how bad it really is.
The median income in the US is $32,000. If each step on a staircase represents $100,000 of net worth then HALF of the people in the US are on the base or the very 1st step. Almost 200 million people who can’t even get one step up in this system. The households on the 80th percentile are on the 5th step. That’s about five seconds of walking to get up there. A billionaire is ten thousand steps up the staircase. That’s enough to walk up five Empire State buildings. From these heights, they couldn’t tell the difference between a millionaire and a homeless even if they wanted to. And Jeff Bezos? That’s more than halfway to the space station. That’s more than 24 consecutive Mt. Everest’s stacked on top of each other.
If you had a job that paid you $2,000 an HOUR, and you worked full time (40 hours a week) with no vacations, and you somehow managed to save all of that money and not spend a single cent of it, you would still have to work more than 25,000 years until you had as much money as Jeff Bezos. Of course, we are talking about all his assets but don’t forget that Jeff is selling his shares from time to time. Sold $1B of stock in 2017 and Cashed out $1.8B in 2019. He reinvested the money but nevertheless, he is able to cash it out if he wanted to store it. Btw, how working in a warehouse is terrible for you but great for Bezos
The 1789 revolution happened because the people of France were growing increasingly more upset with treatment they received from the upper and royal classes, mainly due to special privileges. The 1917 was similar in cause. Families lived just above the subsistence level, and around 50 percent had a member who had left the village to find other work, often in the towns. As the central Russian population boomed, land became scarce. This way of life contrasted sharply with those of rich landowners, who held 20 percent of the land in large estates and were often members of the Russian upper class. source. The great depression of 1929 had only 8% of unemployment rate.
As you may see we are getting closer to the same causes as 200 years ago and 100 years ago. Rich getting richer and using automation to force “peons” out of work. 60% of Americans have less than 1000 USD in their savings Source and most are living from paycheck to paycheck in 2019. With this crisis unemployment in the US could soar from record low levels to 20% if strong action is not taken to tackle the coronavirus, said the US treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. With 20% of the population laidoff it just proves to companies that they can exist without the worker.
Notable mentions:
- Elon Musk can blow a MILLION dollars EVERY DAY for 65 years. Was born rich. “We had so much money we couldn’t even close our safe”, “a teenager Elon walked the streets of New York with emeralds in his pocket”. Musk family owns an emerald mine in Zambia
- The Koch brothers can blow a MILLION dollars EVERY DAY for 242 years. How the Koch brothers are uber rich
- Bill Gates can blow a MILLION dollars EVERY DAY for 247 years. Was born rich, his mom worked with IBM CEO, his father was a lawyer, his grandfather was a Banker and his great grandfather was the president of the national city bank in Seattle
- Jeff Bezos can blow a MILLION dollars EVERY DAY for 306 years. Was born rich. Grandfather owned a Texas ranch, his parents invested hundred thousand dollars into Amazon. Btw Jeff donated 98M USD in November 2019 — If you earn 50k a year it is like donating 45 USD
- The Walton heirs can blow a MILLION dollars EVERY DAY for 370 years. Born billionaires
Share of wealth held by the Forbes 400 more than doubled in the last 10 years
- Distribution of U.S. income as of Jan 2017. Now it’s worse
- Productivity is increasing but wages are stagnant, all the profit is going to the wealthy. The division started in 1982 when companies were allowed again to do buybacks of their stocks. Timestamp
- Distribution of average U.S. income growth during expansions
- Income inequality in the U.S. compared to western Europe
- Income gini index in the world. As you can see. US, UK, Spain, Japan, Greece, Australia, Italy are in the top 10.
- Inequality is still an issue in Europe but not in every country, here’s the distribution of German wealth. And here you have for the UK. The wealthiest 10% of households owned 44% of total aggregate household wealth. The richest 1% have accumulated as much wealth as the poorest 55% of the population. The poorest 50% of the population only have 9% of total wealth.
- U.S. economic mobility compared to other developed countries
- Taxes for the richest Americans have plummeted over the last 50 years. However the Effective tax rate stayed the same
- Amazing info-graphic about U.S. economics over time
- In addition to all of that, there’s another layer of inequality as well. The one between the 1st World countries and 3rd world countries
- 12 EU countries reject move to expose companies’ tax avoidance
Videos:
- Why Billionaires won’t save us — Big philanthropy is a lie
- Wealth inequality in America
- Vox — How American CEOs got so rich. The pay gap between American CEO and workers moved from 15:1 in 1965 to 220:1 in 2018.
- What corporations want has more of an effect on U.S. law than what the public wants
- The minimum wage in the US isn’t working
- Why rent will be your downfall. How rent cost grew
- Why pay and benefits as % of GDI are declining
- Beware fellow plutocrats: pitchforks are coming
- What is neoliberalism
- How corporations pay no federal income tax
- Banned TED Talk: Rich people don’t create jobs
- What the 1% don’t want you to know
- Debt buyers
- Trickle down doesn’t work because rich are not spending 3000x more than you
Articles:
- Study shows that you’re more likely to be successful if you’re born dumb and rich than poor and smart
- Richest 1% of Americans Close to Surpassing Wealth of Middle Class
- “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?”
- Millenials are the poorest generation
- An hereditary meritocracy
- Panama papers — Don’t let it die
- Formations House works to hide money for the superrich
And it will get worse and worse
‘Robots’ Are Not ‘Coming for Your Job’ — Management Is. How can you retrain a 50 yo trucker? How can you tweet #learntocode to a 55 years old maid? No more sick leaves, no more PTO, no more maternity leaves.The managers who see a cost benefit to replacing a human role with an algorithmic one and choose to make the switch are killing jobs. The CEOs who see an opportunity to reap greater profits in machines — they’re the ones coming for your job.
There’s an Automation Crisis Underway Right Now, It’s Just Mostly Invisible and ‘Goliath Is Winning’: The Biggest U.S. Banks Are Set to Automate Away 200,000 Jobs
800 million jobs will be taken by automation by 2030 and Humans need not to apply
the elites have made the conscious decision to destroy the climate in order to maintain their power.
Fight, before it’s too late
