The Gap The Gap The Gap The Gap Between The Rich And The Poor

[saturnine1979]

HONESTLY

That there is a graph of the distribution of wealth in the United States. Watch the movie if you need it simplified for you. I knew there was a definite gap between the rich and the poor, but that's just goddamned insane. Please pass that link on.

I'm doing my current 3D Design project on this. I got the idea after reading Orwell's Down

Comments

[iheardmusic]

That's sick. I had read something about this a few months ago, but I didn't realize how ridiculously huge the wealth gap actually is.

P.S. You need to read The Hundred Year Lie by Randall Fitzgerald. It doesn't have anything to do with the wealth gap, but it's something I think you'd be interested in. It's pretty horrifying, too.

[saturnine1979]

Cool, I'll definitely check it out.

[musikdork228]

oh, also, it's your cdoftheweek! :)

[saturnine1979]

yeah. that's important.

[musikdork228]

no need to get snippy, just wanted to remind you while i was thinking about it. :)

[joulescole]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but after doing a little bit of math I can tell that this graph is wrong, or at the very least misleading

[saturnine1979]

Hold on, Tom

[joulescole]

I don't care about views or stances at the moment, all I care about is that this guy made this graph mixed two very different kinds of data to put something that he wants into a sharp light. He does this through lieing.

Bill Gates only makes about $1 million a year. Not very many people make a whole lot more than that. The graph should end at about that forty inch mark. But it doesn't, because he threw in other, unrelated data.

If you're the kind of guy that likes to perpetuate lies because they help your cause, then sure, keep it. But I'm not.

"There's no chance for dreams in capitalism."
And I suppose everyone in North Korea and China are having all their dreams fulfilled. If you happen to know of a coutry that isn't capitalistic and things are great, I'd like to hear it. And don't say Canada. They're capitalists at their core, the same as all the Eurapeon coutries.

[saturnine1979]

Maybe I shouldn't have said "capitalism", but what I meant is that our economic system is fucked up.

There's plenty of other countries whose economics beat the shit out of ours, and are much better at distributing wealth. There's a great article here: http://www.progress.org/2006/hirsch01.htm

And this is one good example of what I'm talking about:

"...the ratio of the 90th and 10th percentile earnings is another measure of income inequality, with Mexico at 11.55 having, by far, highest inequality. The United States (5.45) was next, well ahead of the United Kingdom (4.58), Australia (4.33), and Canada (4.13). The countries with the lowest "90-10" gap were Norway (2.80), Denmark (2.85), Slovakia (2.88), Finland (2.90), and the Netherlands (2.98). The point to remember is that there are fine democracies with far more economic equality than we have."

[pixifaerithingy]

Okay well obviously I'm one of the more conservative members of your friends list, but I think it all comes down to your career choice. My mother was trained as a lawyer, and she didn't have to pay for any of her schooling since she came from a very poor family (she was the first in her family to even go to college) and her grades were high. My nana worked in a bakery and my grandfather was a construction worker. My father is, to put it bluntly, not that bright. He just got a generic engineering degree from University of Illinois. Again, first in his family to go to college. His parents were typical midwest farmers. But, my family has a yearly income of around $300,000. And my mom doesn't even work as a lawyer. If she continued practicing, we'd probably be making close to half a million. My family IS the American Dream. It CAN still happen.

[saturnine1979]

That's all good, but it's not really the issue. The problem is the immense gap (and this cannot be stressed enough, the gap is nearly inconcievably large) between the rich and the poor isn't because the poor aren't working hard and the rich are, it's because of the way our economic system works. Everyone can't feasibly be a doctor or a lawyer, and, besides most of the poor are minorities who systematically have a harder time recieving the same level of education as white people. So it's not a question of effort or desire.

[regretandramen]

A definite gap is an exaggeration at this point.
That gap is just inconceivable.

If they really stacked money up into the stratosphere, they'd need to put lights on it so planes wouldn't run into it.
Someone's got to think about the planes!!!