[Cyrien]

Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has more wealth than the bottom 45 percent of American households combined.

My concern with the rich is exactly your statement and the false reasoning behind it. It hasn't always been like that. Sure the wealthy have always controled a greater percentage, but when you get to the really high percentages (like now) bad things tend to happen historically. Ever heard of the great depression? It wasn't a stock market crash that caused it. A leading cause was extreme unequal wealth distribution. Eventually people working can't afford to buy what they make the big wealthy cut back in production to save costs on reduced sells you get into a feed back loop and it crashes around your head. Most of the people with millions break under the strain the poor get poorer and the extreme rich... are mostly unaffected. Then something extreme has to come out to remedy the situation such as WW2. Causing large numbers of paychecks without the ability to spend it all right away and reduced supply until the end when big savings and new production enable purchasing which jump starts the production economy.

Now after the Last Great Depression most nations put in protections to help prevent it from recurring. But nothing is failsafe. Those just make it harder not impossible.

We need to becareful of emerging trends before the situation becomes entirely untenable.

Business Week reports that in 1999 top executives earned 419 times the average wage of a blue-collar worker, up from 326:1 in 1998. In 1980, the ratio was 42:1.

You telling me those exectuvies in 1999 are doing that much more work in comparison to 1980 counterparts? The people burned by Enron and friends would probably disagree.

In 1973, the income of the top 20 percent of American families was 7.5 times that of the bottom 20 percent. By 1996, it was 13 times.

In 1998, weekly wages were 12 percent lower than in 1973 on an inflation-adjusted basis. Productivity rose 33 percent over that period. Had pay kept pace with productivity, the average hourly wage would now be $18.10, rather than $12.77. That translates into a difference in annual pay of $11,000 for a full-time, year-round worker.

Many keep afloat with the credit game. That game doesn't Last forever and in the end you have to pay the piper. Heard of how Fords workers could afford to buy their own cars? Kinda misleading since they could only do it on credit. Few could afford a car on anything but credit. Sound familiar?

Between 1983 and 1995, the bottom 40 percent of households lost 80 percent of their net worth. The middle fifth lost 11 percent. By 1995, 18.5 percent of households had zero or negative net worth (an average -$5,600, down from -$3,000 in 1983).

By 1995, the middle quintile of income-earners had only enough savings to maintain their current standard of living for 1.2 months (i.e., if they lost their jobs). That's down from 3.6 months in 1989.

Household debt as a percentage of personal income rose from 58 percent in 1973 to an estimated 85 percent in 1997.

From 1983-1995 only the top five percent of households saw an increase in their net worth while only the top 20 percent experienced an increase in their income.


It isn't the wealthy being wealthier. I have no problem with those with millions or multi-millions of dollars. It is the people with billions who can afford to buy out whole countries and what they represent as a historical trend that concern me.

I am not in favor of taking from the rich and giving to the poor but I am in favor of a ballanced sustainable economy. I thing which I feel we do not possess today.

I believe in the equal opportunity for every individual to become unequal if they put in the effort and others don't.

At present, 3 billion people live on less than $2 per day while 1.3 billion get by on less than $1 per day. Seventy percent of those living on less than $1 per day are women. With global population expanding 80 million per year, World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn cautions that, unless we address "the challenge of inclusion," 30 years hence we will have 5 billion people living on less than $2 per day.

Two billion people worldwide now suffer from anemia, including 55 million in industrial countries. Given current trends in population growth and prosperity-hoarding, three decades from now we could have a world in which 3.7 billion people are anemic.

The combined net worth of the Forbes 400 was $738 billion on September 1, 1998. That's up from $624 billion in 1997. That's an average one-year increase of $285 million per person. That works out to $780,000 per day or $32,500 per hour ($541 per second).