Hello and thanks for checking in.
Today, we have another relatively short post. This comes from David Harvey, at one of my favorite think tanks (yup, I
have favorite think tanks), the Royal Society of the Arts (RSA). In 11
minutes, he succinctly identifies the problems in our current system.
Amazingly, he gets to globalization, wage suppression, home ownership,
credit card usage, and labor unions in quick fashion. But, he gets to
the point that capitalism never really fixes the root problems. It moves
the problem around the globe. It also works around established rules.
He talks about how more billionaires were created during the financial
crisis as the world economy weakened. It's incredibly interesting. Give
it a look, it's worth you're 10 minutes. I will also post other videos
from RSA, because I just love their work.
And, apropos to the wage suppression mentioned by David Harvey, here is a great piece from Professor Richard D. Wolff. In this piece, he gives you the hard numbers on poverty in this country. He fingers capitalism as the culprit. Wolff talks about the stock options and huge salaries (for execs) driving income gaps and poverty. He also mentions the relentless drive for profits (and the wage suppression/job cuts that are invariably linked to that). At the end, he also calls for a full rethink, to our current system. And, he supplies progressive alternatives, which David Harvey did not in the RSA video. I thought these two items, tied nicely together. In Wolff's piece he looks deeper into our last Census information. According to Census data, the poverty line in 2010 was $22,314 for a family of four. If you do the math, the Bureau's poverty line works out to only $15 per day per person for food, shelter, clothing yourself, transportation costs, etc. If you make above this $22k number, you are not considered to be living in poverty in this country. Under this amazingly low standard, there are still 46.2 million people living in poverty, about 15% of the population.
This goes further into the crisis of capitalism. It also features a movie called "Zeigeist" from Peter Joseph. Mr. Joseph has been working hard trying to find an alternative to capitalism and his "Zeitgeist" series explores that. Also something called the "Venus Project" is worth a look, if you get the chance. An alternative to our current system that is being worked on.
The tragedy, beyond these horrible numbers, is that about 1 in 4 people are close to falling into poverty. The reasons are plenty. As local, city, and state governments hemorrhage money with unbalanced budgets, many social services are cut. Those affected are usually on the low end of the income scale. Many will have divert more of their own income to make up for the difference, thus accelerating the slide into poverty. Should Medicare and Social Security benefits ever be cut, hundreds of thousands of people will be forced to aid their again parents. This can lead to an even bigger shift into poverty, as the Baby Boomers start to retire in an awful economy. Add to all this stagnant wages, pension cuts, and rising health care costs, the end result is these near depression-level poverty numbers.
I hope those were informative. I thought each gave thought provoking information. Hopefully, it will get the wheels turning on how to better our current system.
See you next time,
James
And, apropos to the wage suppression mentioned by David Harvey, here is a great piece from Professor Richard D. Wolff. In this piece, he gives you the hard numbers on poverty in this country. He fingers capitalism as the culprit. Wolff talks about the stock options and huge salaries (for execs) driving income gaps and poverty. He also mentions the relentless drive for profits (and the wage suppression/job cuts that are invariably linked to that). At the end, he also calls for a full rethink, to our current system. And, he supplies progressive alternatives, which David Harvey did not in the RSA video. I thought these two items, tied nicely together. In Wolff's piece he looks deeper into our last Census information. According to Census data, the poverty line in 2010 was $22,314 for a family of four. If you do the math, the Bureau's poverty line works out to only $15 per day per person for food, shelter, clothing yourself, transportation costs, etc. If you make above this $22k number, you are not considered to be living in poverty in this country. Under this amazingly low standard, there are still 46.2 million people living in poverty, about 15% of the population.
This goes further into the crisis of capitalism. It also features a movie called "Zeigeist" from Peter Joseph. Mr. Joseph has been working hard trying to find an alternative to capitalism and his "Zeitgeist" series explores that. Also something called the "Venus Project" is worth a look, if you get the chance. An alternative to our current system that is being worked on.
The tragedy, beyond these horrible numbers, is that about 1 in 4 people are close to falling into poverty. The reasons are plenty. As local, city, and state governments hemorrhage money with unbalanced budgets, many social services are cut. Those affected are usually on the low end of the income scale. Many will have divert more of their own income to make up for the difference, thus accelerating the slide into poverty. Should Medicare and Social Security benefits ever be cut, hundreds of thousands of people will be forced to aid their again parents. This can lead to an even bigger shift into poverty, as the Baby Boomers start to retire in an awful economy. Add to all this stagnant wages, pension cuts, and rising health care costs, the end result is these near depression-level poverty numbers.
I hope those were informative. I thought each gave thought provoking information. Hopefully, it will get the wheels turning on how to better our current system.
See you next time,
James
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