In 1978 in America, a typical member of the richest 1% earned 8.15 times the typical male worker. In 2010 in America, a typical member of the richest 1% earned 32.62 times the typical male worker. This was caused by businesses forcing middle class wages to stagnate in the early 1970s. Americans responded first by putting women into the work force - the dad was no longer the sole breadwinner in the family. Once this couldnt be done any more, average hours increased, to the point where Americans worked more than the extremely hard working Japanese, and on average 300 hours per year more than Europeans. Again, you can only work so many hours, so when they couldnt work any more, they begun taking on debt in the form of increasing loans and mortgages. Now, America is in a bit of a pickle, with over 18 TRILLION dollars of debt as a country and 47% of Americans holding NO WEALTH. This means they are either in debt, or living day to day. I would argue the largest cause of these problems is by far CORPORATE GREED. This is composed from large scale things like tax evasion, which deprives the American economy of insane amounts of money, political lobbying, which contributes to molding the law around keeping the rich rich, and a narrow-minded focus on shareholders, almost always at the expense of other stakeholders such as the environment, community and its workers. Corporate greed is an issue in New Zealand also, although not to the same level. Business is a passion of mine, and it makes me sad that its the businesses that are hurting so many at the expenses of the few. I just hope that myself, along with many others, can grow up to show that business should not be a tool used to better a select few at the expense of the many, but to be used to better so many! P.S. The irony is... when the middle class thrives, EVERYONE thrives! Come on big boys! Pick up your balls and make some big changes for the 99% of us! P.P.S. If anyone is interested, you can see hear more about the middle class here: inequalityforall/ or corporate greed here: werenotbrokemovie/
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 04:37:13 +0000
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