I can't help but get sentimental during this time of year. It happens every year. If you've had the kind of upbringing I've had then you would understand the warm feeling you get around this time. Winters were always cold but there was always the safety of indoors and the warmth of close family inside by the tree. We had a ritual, in our family to play late night games with close friends every night of the week starting Thanksgiving night and ending around the Epiphany in January. These games would last into the early hours each night even on Sundays and Mondays. To a kid it seemed like we had a lot but we really didn't. We were middle class and my family worked hard after the devastating second world war. They built a new home here in America and were proud of their heritage. No one gave them anything. And they were too proud to accept anything from anyone.
Today life has changed so much. And almost on a daily basis we hear the words "wealth inequality." To many these words mean something totally different. To the very wealthy they mean that the poor are trying to take what they rightly own and worked hard for. To the poor it means that there is just not enough wealth left for them and their struggle is way too difficult to break out of. To the middle class it means almost the same thing. No matter how many jobs they have, catching up to the bills is a "pie in the sky" effort that never seems to come to fruition. Today a savings account is laughable to them.
In the 1980's CEO's made 24 times more than the average worker. Did they deserve it? Possibly, since you had to work very hard to get to that position so I don't see a problem with that. In 2013, this year, CEO's make 354 times more than the average worker? Do they deserve it? Did they work for it? The question can't possibly be answered the same as the response to what the CEO made in 1980. Why? Because the amount of money that is made is an obscene amount that tips the scales of fairness. We are headed (if not there already) to the days of Kings and Queens with the bulk of population being peasants or commoners.
In this country the middle class is quickly disappearing and the people at the very top have 43% more wealth than the bottom 99%. Think about that for a moment. Think long and hard about this because we have been barraged with these numbers for the last five years at least and the importance of those figures fades into monotony. But we can't be bored with these figures because the next step if or when it gets worse will be more devastating than it is today. With these facts, the bottom 99% get to share in the remainder of wealth which is a whopping 57%. Think about that, the top 1% echelon owns 43% of world's wealth and bottom 99% owns 57%. In 1970 it was less than half of that top figure. The top Echelon only owned 20% of the world's wealth.
We can feel the effects today. I don't think there is anyone of the 99% of this country that can't say they don't feel the effects of these statistics. We know that poverty exists in our own country. And we are the richest country in the world! Now in a world of 7 billion people, we are only 333 million in this country. Seems miniscule in comparison to the rest of the world. So if we can feel the inequality of wealth here my question is how blind are we to the rest of the world's struggles? Who cares, right?
In my older years I think back to all those wonderful Christmas's of my upbringing where we didn't have much but we were as happy as could be. With this inequality of wealth how can we in our right conscious not care about the world as a whole? We have the means to feed the world twice over yet we don't. Why, because we have to make sure that that one person has more wealth than a European country, that's why! And lets face it that person didn't work ANY harder than an honest worker of the middle class. It's all about luck, inheritance and luck. Well yes maybe there's a bit more to it than that, investing and making the right moves financially but are they working any harder than anyone else vying for the American dream? NO!
I can't help, in my right consciousness, think about all the struggling people of this world all over the globe. I could have been one of them. Yet I sit here drinking egg nog while they struggle looking for water to survive. Do they know it's Christmas? The world is just not fair and I am thankful of what I have his Holiday season. Let's hope it doesn't end here and that all these voices calling out for fairness win out over the true tyrants of this land and of this world. Not the tyrants that are concocted on the controlled media stations. One man can have a capitalistic existence in moderation. A wasteful existence hurts the common good of man. This holiday season we all need to think about that because that is what the holiday season is about. It's not about Black Friday. We all owe it to the greatest generation, that have made what we have possible.
http://www.amazon.com/Bilderberg-Ultimate-Nolan-J-Reynolds/dp/1621830365/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1387246531&sr=8-2&keywords=bilderberg
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