With economic inequality at the highest level since the Great Depression, here is a link to 11 charts that explain it in simple pictures that anyone can understand. If you want to see what is driving the world-wide OWS movement, this is the current reality and why so many are so angry. How Rich Are the Superrich?A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us? $31,244. http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
For several years now, various publications and economists have noted that the income gap was widening at a ridiculous pace. I'd given up hope that anyone cared much, and that seemed so odd, because inequality has been at the core of many revolutions, maybe most revolutions. Americans seemed oblivious to the fact that they were becoming wage and debt slaves, hence the term sheeple, perhaps because that reality was masked by abundant, easy credit. Now the credit has dried up, and middle-class folks are losing their homes, their 401Ks, their SUVs, their RVs, their botox treatments and whatever toys they bought on credit. They are just now realizing that they've been fleeced, their wages are puny, their costs are rising and life isn't fair. Maybe now they will inform themselves about why this happened, and vote in their own interests in 2012.
IMO, it's those middle-income people who are driving the current unrest here and around the developed World. In the past, they had steady incomes, steady raises. Lately more and more are noticing a decrease in income, where there should be an increase. The idea of a revolution is usually reserved as a last choice for the public to engage in. The 60's had such an event, with the civil rights movement. Today it's an economic disaster that's driving middle-income people backwards, and they are not happy.
