Video Showing the Huge Gap Between Super Rich and Everyone Else Goes Viral

[jadehunter]

For much of the past decade, policymakers and analysts have decried America's incredibly low savings rate, noting that U.S. households save a fraction of the money of the rest of the world. Citing a myriad of causes -- from cheap credit to exploitative bank practices -- they've noted that the average family puts away less than 4 percent of its

Comments

[happythree]

Honestly, I'm trying to understand why you - and you aren't the only one, goodness knows - feel the need to respond to material like this with something along the lines of "I'm going to work hard!" Do you assume that the people who made this video do not work hard, or would prescribe quitting work as a solution?

I suppose I'm rather disheartened by how people react to such information - because it is not new to me, and reactions like yours when it's brought up aren't either. Now, some people say that this is because we Americans prefer to think of ourselves as classless... but this is something that is, in a quantifiable sense, false as well. Politicians and the public talk about class quite regularly - the middle class. So it's a kind of hypocrisy, I think. We'll talk about class, but only the class that 90+ percent of us fancy that we belong to. And in theory this is all fairly harmless, it's a part of our culture and has been for some time, but what about policy? Is policy being made based on exception and shaky mythology and metaphor-couched ideology, or is it based on models that seek to address the reality of economic conditions? Sometimes it's the latter, definitely, but how often, and whose reality? There are other forms of economic policy short of income redistribution that are available to Americans, but if the conversation has to start over again and again I don't think we'll ever get there.

And you're right -- the politicians in and of themselves are not the answer. But turning the tide of public opinion may be.

[alexvdl]

Because I can't do anything about this wealth inequality. I myself can't change this. I can work with others, I can vote my conscience, I can volunteer my time and money. I can do and will continue to do those things.

But when I see this, it makes me want to work all the harder to achieve my goals in life. I can't change the government. I can't change the banks. I can't change this fucked up system that rewards some people and penalizes others for things that they have no control over. Not by myself.

What I can do is work my ass off, just like the majority of the people in this forum do. I can work my ass off and move as far up the ladder as I can go, while doing everything that I can to pull others up with me.

I am usually pretty optimistic about life, but when it comes to politics... we're still fighting for something that the SCOTUS ruled legal forty years ago, we seem to fight the same battles over and over (Women, then racial minorities, now LGBTQ individuals), and we spend so much time worrying about sides, and which side is winning, and who supports what side, that most people don't even seem interested in looking into what they're actually voting for. ONTD_P might light into it. But the general populace doesn't give a fuck, and politicians are using that to line their pockets and screw their constituents. People who make 300 grand a year guaranteed certainly don't want to see their tax rates raise. Especially when it's OTHER one percenters who make the campaign donations that really grease their reelection campaigns.

[happythree]

Perhaps not, but there is some merit to the concept of 'opinion leadership' in voter decision-making heuristics. The American political system is slow to change by design, but that's more reason from my perspective to hold onto the inch even if the end results are by no means immediate, seeing as that is often all that a citizen without the power of the dollar can have.

[alexvdl]

Okay. I don't understand your point though though. Not as in I don't think you are right but as in I'm confused as to what you mean by holding onto the inch.

[happythree]

By the inch I just mean whatever issue you think is important for making the country better. For the makers if this video it is apparently raising awareness of income inequality. It's an uphill battle, obviously, and seeing as it challenges the most powerful people in society by its nature, maybe it is a futile one. Regardless, no one has come up with a perfect formula for how to go about change. I am certain, though, that bottom-up change is necessarily collective, so I find simply examining my own personal power, which is obviously quite limited, and going no further than that, is not enough.

[alexvdl]

Stupid phone ate the entry I tried to post an hour ago. Let's try again.

I agree completely. Watching that video, expressing disgust, and then moving on with your life won't help anyone. My personal casus belli is the budget. Every time an individual asks for financial advice, they are told that they should create a budget and stick to it. Why the hell can't a group of people that are required by LAW to make budget, follow the same damn advice? There aren't many things that I feel strongly enough to write letters to Congresspeople about but that's one of them.

I believe that we can't start working on creating jobs, turning this economy around, and cutting frivolous programs until we have an actual idea of what we're working with. If we don't know how much money we do or don't have, how can we direct it effectively?