Reflection About Wealth Inequality

Income inequality has been a major issue in American history. There are many different factors that contribute to inequality. These include education, wealth, discrimination, ability, and monopoly power.

Direct Democracy is defined by people as a whole who make direct decisions, rather than having decisions made by other representatives. In Madison’s Federalist No.10 he states, “a pure democracy can admit of no cure for the mischief’s of factions

Direct democracy can be defined as a system of democracy in which citizens participate in the majority of legislation; therefore, granting them political self-determination. A representative democracy (also indirect democracy) is a form of democracy founded on the principle of elected officials representing a group of people. A direct democracy has leaders that are chosen specifically by “The People”. There is no Electoral College, or elected officials, to cast the votes of the people, the people cast their own direct votes.

Wealth inequality in the United States has grown tremendously since 1970. The United States continuously reveals higher rates of inequality as a result of perpetual support for free market capitalism. The high rates of wealth inequality cause the growing financial crisis to persist, lower socio-economic mobility, increase national poverty, and have adverse effects on health and well being.

According to Inequality.org, “We equate wealth with ‘net worth,’ the sum total of your assets minus liabilities. Assets can include everything from an owned personal residence and cash in savings accounts to investments in stocks/bonds, real estate, and retirement accounts. Liabilities cover what a household owes: a car loan, credit card balance, student loan, mortgage, or any other bill yet to be paid. In the United States, wealth inequality runs even more pronounced than income inequality” (Wealth). Wealth disparity affects everyone in America. When the top twenty percent of earners in America take over fifty percent of total earnings in any given year, It can be see as very unfair by anyone who is in the middle class and especially the lower class of citizens in the U.S. It is safe to say that both sides of the political world (Republicans and Democrats) are equally worried about how economic inequality will affect their children and future generations. No matter who you ask, rich or poor, and whatever their opinion on the shape of economic distribution in America is, they most likely have a unrealistic sense of the state it is actually in.

The difference of income and workers conditions has been a timeless conflict present throughout history of the United States. In the past workers were faced with deadly work conditions and around the clock hours for little pay. These unjust conditions dramatically increased during the Industrial Revolutions that the United States experienced in the nineteenth century. The latter period of industrialization produced the organization of the first labor unions in the Country, namely the Knights of Labor established in 1869 and the American Federation of Labor established in 1886. In present day countless unions exist, and are a lot less needed than they were in the early industrial days of the United States (Brinkley, 2012).

James Madison once stated inequality of the rich and poor predicament to be “evil” and believed that the government should avoid an “immoderate, and especially unmerited, accumulation of riches” (Johnston, 2016). As one of the founding fathers of our nation, James Madison had a concern about the separation between the rich and the poor. He felt the government should do what it could to avoid the separation, which one can infer that he meant for the government to tax the rich by a greater percentage, thus reducing the financial burden on the poor. A rift has always been present between the rich and the poor throughout history. Depending upon the job, the working class may or may not make enough to support a family. At this point, the

Since the beginning of time, misogyny has played a very important part in the development of the human being. Time and time again, women have been considered as less than men--less smart, less strong, less capable. But where does this ancient prejudice come from? Is it an instinctive preconception? Throughout William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, sexism plays a very important role in the decisions Prince Hamlet makes; his hatred toward what he recognizes as women’s innate “sexual appetite” and moral corruption affects Hamlet’s judgement, and eventually, his course of action.

The way money is distributed within the United States is unbalanced, with the majority of the wealthy owning the bulk of the country’s wealth. Wealth can be defined as a person’s assets and monetary gains. This unequal distribution has caused numerous economic and geographical problems, such as how resources are divided among countries, how developed or industrialized a country is in relation to wealth distribution and the wide spread of disease and lack of medical attention due to an absence of money. In this paper I will address the negative and positive aspects associated with wealth distribution. I will explain how resource distribution contributes to an area’s economic growth. I will also discuss varying ways to measure wealth

Every American dreams of finding a job that pays well enough so that they may comfortably take care of their loved ones and themselves for years to come. Most Americans hope to find some way to make a living that they enjoy, something that they view as productive. Unfortunately, many do not have this luxury. In our society, a good portion of the population is forced to hold the base of our country in place while hardly being redeemed for their time and effort, and thus the problem of income inequality. Numbers of these people live from paycheck to paycheck, barely getting by, not because they manage their money poorly, but because the value of their time at work is negligible.

"How Economic Inequality Harms Societies." Richard Wilkinson:. TED Talks, July 2011. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.

What is wealth inequality? “It is the difference between individuals or populations in the distribution of assets, wealth or income.” [1] In sociology, the term is social stratification and refers to “a system of structured social inequality” [2] where the inequality might be in power, resources, social standing/class or perceived worth. In the US, where a class system exist, (as opposed to caste or estate system) your place in the class system can be determined by your personal achievements. However, the economic and social class that an individual is born into is a big indicator of the class they will end up in as an adult. [3] What are the effects of this wealth inequality in the US and what causes it as well as some possible solutions

In any given population, there is a difference between what people within the population earn. The uneven distribution of income in any given population is income inequality. In order for there to be income, there has to be several sources of income. These sources of income may be combinational or independent per person receiving the income. Income may result from wages, rent, bank account interests, salaries or even profits made in business transactions ( Stiglitz, 2012).

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth contributed to the murder of King Duncan and the murders that follow. Macbeth is known for his bravery and courage as a soldier on the battlefield, and as a solider he is very familiar with killing people, which we later see throughout the play. This shows that Macbeth is solely responsible for the murders he commits throughout the play. Although, Macbeth may seem totally responsible for these murders, other characters actions in the play including Lady Macbeth, the witches, and himself led Macbeth to his downfall.

Media outlets have been used throughout the years as a way to communicate and maintain the world together. They were often seen as something positive because they were able to provide information from all around the world to a person’s home. Nowadays, the media have evolved to become an important role in society. As cited by Parsons, Reichl, and Pedersen (2017), while the media is often used as personal enjoyment and diversion it had grown to be a way in which individuals explore and expand their curiosity on subjects such as personal enrichment, self-awareness, and sexuality. However, negativity has also come with this popular trend. Since a young age, individuals are exposed to different messages through the media. The media have become a way to promote and incite stereotypes that might influence people into believing they must behave or look a certain way in order to be accepted into society. By promoting certain stereotypes, the media have also found a way to reinforce and reproduce certain gender norms. For instance, the role-learning theory supports this idea by mentioning that the images the media portrays eventually become the ideas that will influence individuals’ development of beliefs and self-concepts (Andersen, 2015). In other words, the media have developed the power to influence how people create their stereotypes about society. In brief, some of the media outlets that have had the greatest impact on influencing the perception of gender in society are