I try not to carry too much of a political/ideological bias in economics, but I can't help but post this video just because of its significance in terms of raw.concrete.data.
We hear so much talk about 'socialism' in Washington. I've even seen the likes of Obama caricaturized with a Hitler mustache on several unfortunate occasions. But this video makes me wonder, are we really slipping down a path towards 'socialism'? How ridiculous is this claim by quantitative standards? How laughable is the efficacy of Trickle Down Economics when data like this is readily presentable in retort? (make sure you're seated)
I hear these numbers often, but I think it doesn't really hit home without a visual. It's also interesting to see how far off most individual's estimates are. Socialism is pretty clearly not anything the U.S. is approaching, and I would think/hope that if more people knew the actual data they would not make such drastic claims.
ReplyDelete"Only 1% of Americans have about 40% of the nations wealth"... wow. What also shocked me was the democrats and republicans both agree on what the distribution of wealth should be. This video really made the trickle-down theory absolutely bull in my eyes. The ending were he talks about the CEO, and how in order to make that much money, he would earning 380 times more than the average worker's pay... what?! This video is obviously frustrating, and to be honest I was expecting the poor to be poor and rich to be rich, but this is more than I thought. How in the world can we change this...
ReplyDeleteI do find this video fascinating and important for everyone to see. As a critical consumer I would like to see how they went about finding the "ideal" curve just so I could better analyze how Americans feel about this. The thing that frustrates me the most about our society is that 9 out of 10 people can feel this way, and still not be heard because it's the 1 of out 10 that actually has a say in issues like executive salaries and bonuses. It's incredibly discouraging. I agree with everything Joe and Mo are saying. Most Americans agree that this is not how it should be, yet I fear that our government will never be able to figure out a compromise to help fix it.
ReplyDeleteThis video is highly informative and eye opening. I agree with Joe that if people knew the real data they wouldn't continue to make such drastic claims based purely on who is president - both Republicans and Democrats can agree that the wealth distribution isn't going to help the nation, it will only help those getting paid 380x more than the average.
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