Contrast this.
This August, financier Leon D. Black celebrated his 60th with a blowout at his oceanfront estate in Southampton. After a buffet dinner featuring a seared foie gras station, some 200 guests took in a show by Elton John, who was paid at least $1 million for the hour-and-a-half performance. Revelers included Michael R. Milken, the junk-bond pioneer and Mr. Black’s boss at Drexel Burnham Lambert in the 1980s; Julian H. Robertson Jr. , the hedge fund investor; Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; and Mr. Schwarzman, head of the Blackstone Group. Rounding out the guest list were politicians including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who rubbed elbows with media celebrities like Martha Stewart and Howard Stern, so reported Fred Prouser of Reuters.
Less than 60 days later the Census Bureau reported that the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it. The report said the percentage of Americans living below the poverty line last year, 15.1 percent, was the highest level since 1993.
Minorities were hit hardest. African-Americans experienced the highest poverty rate, at 27 percent, up from 25 percent in 2009, and Hispanics rose to 26 percent from 25 percent. For whites, 9.9 percent lived in poverty, up from 9.4 percent in 2009. Asians were unchanged at 12.1 percent.
We are a nation of haves and have-nots.
Both hide from the limelight so those of us in the middle can avoid the painful view of either extreme. Social disruption has spread through the Middle East to Africa and southern Europe. Most in America believe we are immune. Legislators in Washington discuss reduced spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, unemployment benefits, and public education.
Somehow, the possibility of violence on our streets, in our neighborhoods seems to reside out of our consciousness.
#OCCUPYWALLST seems to be the first, hopefully of many, efforts, to address some of this, as Michael Moore points out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaXBWpN7ii8&feature=share
Not only is there an obliviousness to the consequences of these huge wealth discrepancies, but it’s as if a whole swath of our so called leaders have decided to ignore what history teaches us. When society gets this out of whack the underclass will rise up. What happened in England this summer might be dismissed as a simple case of “extreme shopping”, since the disruptions died down so quickly, but when there’s no hope and no jobs and no compassion and no respect and a limited dehumanizing safety net, then, as Jeffrey points out, the logical outlet is violence and either revolution or an approximation of a police state. I know which I would prefer.
It really hits you when you think of these to scenarios that the 1 millon dollar spending on one hour of entertainment, could give more than a hundred people the chance to start up a good life. You will never be able to take away the fact that having fun is generally considered as a human right, but here it becomes quite scary when you think of one hour entertainment in relation to more than one hundred lives. Imagine that the people at this birthday party got the choice: Are you willing to give up this planned one hour entertainment in favour of giving several people the chance of getting a decent life, at least a home? I can’t imagine that anyone would say no, I think if it were even only one person it would had been enough. But reality isn’t like that.
Poor them, they do not know even how to party decently, Elton John? Why, Tom Jones was not available?
On a serious note, it is our society’s fault that these people become extremely anti-social. The society admires them greatly and wants to emulate them. Until we reverse that, through better education, ethics and culture, there will always be enough people “renting” and “idling” on the economy and society and partying in defiance of their fellow human beings.
Thanks for the encouraging video, Chris. Americans speaking out is the only thing that gives me hope that this country will one day be a functioning true democracy – that ‘the people’s voice’ will be greater than the monied special interest groups.