| |
|
A society of the destitute
| | World now has 10 million millionaires, report says
Excerpt: The number of people around the world with at least $1 million in assets passed 10 million for the first time last year, according to a new report. And their bank accounts are growing even faster.
The combined wealth of the globe's millionaires grew to nearly $41 trillion last year, an increase of 9 percent from a year before, Merrill Lynch & Co. and consulting firm Capgemini Group said Tuesday. ... | |
Ten million millionaires. Wow. Isn't that something? With combined income of $41 trillion
you'd almost think the global economy wasn't in the middle of a massive swan dive. Now
compare that
worldwide total to the number of people who live hand-to-mouth and
paycheck-to-paycheck in any given state, province, or even some of the larger cities of
the world.
$41 trillion dollars is more than the earnings of several combined countries and their hundreds of millions of working class citizens, but for some reason it's up to those working shmucks to spend as much of their hard-earned cash as possible to fix the sinking economy, while the rich have the harrowing task of spending that money only in ways that will make even more money. With the pyramid scheme that is the business world, that leaves most people out in the cold... often literally.
We have 'experts' aplenty who tell us that having money does no good to the economy if it goes unspent, but they seem to miss the obvious when they suggest we go out and buy large amounts of luxury items or downright useless
|
|
What strength does a society of the destitute have?
How does having millions of people with no money and a few with all the money in the country help society at large?
Why are those who amass great amounts of wealth praised while those who scrape by are being admonished or blamed outright for their situation?
What will become of us if we continue to stagnate like this?
|
|
|
|
|
crap to bolster the economy, effectively giving our money to one or more of the ten million people who aren't going to spend it. The millionaires will let it sit in their vast bank accounts as opposed to doing such un-capitalist things as pay their employees to reflect the rising costs of living, hiring more employees for no other reason than to boost the employment rate, or maybe investing in the cultivation of farmland. (As relatively unprofitable as farming is, it's really a bad idea to convert all arable land into condos and industrial parks. We'll basically starve if we can't grow crops as will our livestock with no feed.)
As there is less and less money to go around there will be fewer people buying luxury items or even the essentials of food, clothes, and housing. As there are fewer buyers the major sellers will have to let people go to reduce their losses, resulting in even less money going around and more people without jobs. Entire industries will eventually close down as their owners see no further reason continue operations, as any business will become a fiscal sinkhole without customers. Without customers, without employees, without a profit, those ten million millionaires will simply have to retire early and do nothing more with those millions.
What good is it that there are ten million millionaires? What does it say when there are people with more money than the rest of the country they live in combined? What does it say when we encourage those without money to throw it away and praise those who have it and allow the economy to stagnate?
If there were twice as many millionaires it would only mean that there were twenty times as many people facing unemployment, homelessness, starvation, and all manners of other indignities. There's a limited amount of prosperity in the world, so why is society bent on limiting the number of people who are prosperous? We are making the mistake of measuring prosperity by the number of people who have everything, and ignoring the masses who have next to nothing.
I put these questions to anyone with half a mind to mull them over: What strength does a society of the destitute have? How does having millions of people with no money and a few with all the money in the country help society at large? Why are those who amass great amounts of wealth praised while those who scrape by are being admonished or blamed outright for their situation? What will become of us if we continue to stagnate like this?
If we don't get our heads screwed on straight and take it upon ourselves to realize there's something wrong with the way we've been doing things, we'll never be smart enough to sit down and think about how to do it differently -- so that we all come out as winners, and not just ten million of us on top of billions of the totally screwed.
|
Chris D.
|
|
|
Our front page is free from nudity and profanity, but interior pages and external links may not be safe for work, and you may be shocked, offended, or in trouble with your boss. A link doesn't imply that we agree with every sentence and every sentiment on every site we link to. We use our noggins, and suggest you use yours.
Anything sent to Unknown News may be published. If you don't want it published, say so plainly. Of course, we publish all incoming hate mail.
|
|
|
| |
We sell our own progressive bumper stickers:
pro-peace,
anti-Bush,
pro-freedom,
anti-Republican
stickers you won't
find anywhere else.
$3 each or two for $5
bumper stickers
|
|
| |
|
Unknown News is more fun and more informative with your participation, so please don't be shy. Consider yourself invited to speak your mind.
Because we respect peoples' privacy, we do not keep records of friends' and contributors' contact information. This means we can't forward private communications between readers and writers, but we always welcome dialogue for publication.
When we publish incoming emails, we usually edit out the sender's last name, email address, or anything else that would tend to uniquely identify the author (if we slip up, please let us know). But if your email is unambiguously intended only to annoy, insult, or threaten us, we'll publish all the details, and leave it on-line forever.
We're especially interested in hearing and considering different perspectives. All we ask is that you conduct yourself sanely and civilly. For the most productive dialogue, it helps if you'll cite a specific article or concept we've gotten wrong.
You can contact Helen & Harry at <newsuneed at yahoo.com>. If that address ever fails, our back-up email address is <unknownnews at inbox.com>.
But please, don't email us unless you're really and truly, honestly, actually trying to send the publishers of News a communication you're not sending to anyone or everyone else.
Please don't send attachments or other cr*p we don't want.
If you're trying to reach us but getting no reply, it's probably because you've sent us cr*p we don't want, so we're filtering your emails into the trash, unopened and unread.
If you'd like to have your email address unblocked, simply send a sincere apology (from an un-blocked email address).
YOU CAN HELP
| |
|
| |
The dialogue page is our "letters to the editor" section.
To participate, email your comments to newsuneed at yahoo.com.
|
|
Links in red are not safe for work, and links in pink include audio and/or video.
|
|
|
|
|
| |
