The world is awash in cash – US companies alone have US$2 trillion stashed in cash and the amount of cash in the G4 economies of the United States, the euro zone, Japan and Britain has expanded five-fold since 2008. The reason, lack of investment opportunities and low returns in all asset classes. Yet, an estimated 4.5 billion people at the base of the pyramid are underserved in healthcare, education, sanitation, financial services, technology, transportation etc. Businesses aimed at serving this segment of the population would create significant social impact and may also get many of the sluggish economies moving again as many pockets at the base of the pyramid remain outside the economic system and with little hope of joining the ranks of global consumers. …show more content…
The World Bank estimates that there are more than a billion people living in poverty (earning less than $1.25 per day). A Credit Suisse report estimates that 71% of the world lives on less than $10 a day. The same report estimates that the incomes of the world’s poor 20% have hardly changed since 1988 while the richest 10% have seen their incomes rise 46%. The wealth inequality is assuming obscene proportions; the richest 1% have seen their share of global wealth increase from 44% in 2009 to 48% in 2014. The rest of the richest 20% own almost the rest of the global wealth (46%). The other 80% share just 5.5% of global wealth with an average asset holding of $3,851 vs $2.7 million per adult (1/700th) of the 1% in 2014. Oxfam reckons that the richest 1% own more wealth than all the rest. Back in 2010, it took 388 super-rich individuals to own half of the world. In 2016, 62 richest individuals have as much wealth ($1.76 trillion) as the bottom half of the world’s population (over 3.5 billion). This, when 1 in 9 people do not have enough to
The video Wealth Inequality in America provides an eye-opening experience to inequality’s reality in the United States. Most Americans believe the system we have today is bad however what they think is far from the ideal and even farther from the reality. The video provides chart to have visuals of the wealth distribution in the United States. Of course, going to socialism would not be the best route. 9 out of 10 Americans feel the ideal wealth distribution should be a curve. The reality chart depicts the wealthy people and top one percent is off the chart since they have so much wealth. Additionally, the top one percent posses quarter of the national income. The narrator suggest we need to revise reality and not what we think it is.
In the 21st century, the American media has portrayed the wealth inequality in the United States in a very black and white way. Poverty has become an ongoing problem and has accelerated the appalling wealth divide. In 2010, the poverty rate in the U.S. reached fifteen percent which was the highest it had reached in almost two decades. Obligations to providing equality and adequate living conditions have been removed; there is no more “moral code or ethical principle” that can be used to contradict this growing American atrocity. On one side of the spectrum there is the upper class, the esteemed one percent of the social hierarchy in our country; however, on the other side there is the desolate and extreme poor that are constantly being used
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 crowd began filing into Sister Jean’s soup kitchen on Pacific Ave. in Atlantic City, N.J. well before lunch was to be served, while directly across the street, people with money to burn strolled into Donald Trump’s massive and garish Taj Mahal casino.
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
At the heart of the rise of populism in the United States is the issue of inequality. The gap between the wealthy and poor has been growing at an alarming rate. In response, Americans have turned to populist leaders on both sides of the aisle, most notably Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, for a solution. Wealth inequality poses a serious threat to future generations like mine, who, in pursuit of the American Dream, will find upward mobility nearly impossible. Disenfranchised, desire for innovation and growth will cease.
Imagine all the wealth in the United States. Roughly 84.9 trillion dollars, a pretty big number to wrap your mind around, right? Now imagine a third of that number concentrated into the hands of only 1% of the population of the United States. Not only would this seem unfair, but also immoral. Sadly, this unfortunate situation is a reality in the United States. Of all the political issues that face this nation, wealth inequality is often overlooked. This type of inequality is defined as the unequal distribution of assets among a population. The United States has one of the highest gaps between the upper and lower class out of other developed countries. Resolving this issue is a complicated
The wealth gap, or wealth inequality, is the uneven distribution of wealth within the United States. The gap in the United States is one of the largest gaps between the rich and the poor out of most developed countries. The wealth gap is impossible to ignore when “income inequality has been increasing steadily since the 1970s, and now has reached levels not seen since 1928.” (D. Desilver, 2013)
In few words, studying the aspects of the health belief model, patients can accept or reject the designed and appropriate interventions. For example, if a patient is unaware of his or her risk factors for one or more diseases, direct teaching toward informing the patient about personal risk factors. If the patient is aware of the risk, but feels that the behavior change is overwhelming or unachievable, efforts on helping the patient have the ability to overcome the perceived barriers.
Wealth inequality is rooted in the American idea of capitalism because capitalism is creating a name for yourself and making the most money you can, capitalism also includes the fact you can do whatever you want with the money you acquired. Krugman talks about how capitalism created wealth inequality when he says, “…‘capitalism,' in which the commanding heights of the economy are controlled not by talented individuals but by family dynasties…” (Krugman). If generations ago your family was one of the first families in America and became exceedingly rich off of trade or land you probably still have a large majority of their money. Because we live in a capitalistic world people can choose to spend every single penny they have, or give their money
The wealth gap should not be allowed to continue because, by letting the wealth gap continue, people are turning themselves into slaves. People's perceptions on the subject are secured by what is reality. There are solutions to make the wealth gap shrink but it will take education and the commitment of everyone. Who is affected by the wealth gap? If the gap was to shrink who would benefit from it? Wealth inequality is wrong but it can be fixed with education.
Inequality is not favorable in society. There is inequality in many aspects of our society, such as race, and gender. The main inequality we look at is income inequality in the United States. The one percent of the population control a vast majority of the United States currency. The Gini coefficient has been increasing ever since the Industrial Revolution, a period where education, manufacturing, and economics has shown growth. However, income inequality has increased in the Industrial Revolution. There are many events, and causes that have led to the rise of income equality in the United States.
It is crazy to hear that the top richest people in this world have the same wealth as the poorest 3 billion people in this world. Even though rich countries are giving aid to poor countries, the huge gap difference between their wealth is due to large corporations form rich countries taking more money from poor countries, and this really explains a lot why poor country never have the chance to actually thrive. The thought that poor people should be able to come up from where they came from, which is a thought in many people's minds, especially those who have money, isn't all that simple.
The Supreme Court, on June 25, 2012, has banned the sentencing of life in prison without parole for a juvenile who have committed murder. According to the Supreme Court, the act of sentencing life in prison without parole violates the eighth amendment which bans cruel and unusual punishment. The ban only applies to people of under the age of eighteen years old. The purpose is to prevent children under eighteen to be tried as an adult in court. Not all justices agree with the ban, four of them disapproves of it, claiming it is “the will of American society that heinous crimes committed by juveniles should always be punished with a sentence of life in prison.” I personally agree with the ban but I do agree with the four justices on that American
The highest earning fifth of U.S. families earned 59.1% of all income, while the richest earned 88.9% of all wealth. A big gap between the rich and poor is often associated with low social mobility, which contradicts the American ideal of equal opportunity. Levels of income inequality are higher than they have been in almost a century, the top one percent has a share of the national income of over 20 percent (Wilhelm). There are a variety of factors that influence income inequality, a few of which will be discussed in this paper. Rising income inequality is caused by differences in life expectancy, rapidly increases in the incomes of the top 5 percent, social trends, and shifts in the global economy.