Thread: A Tale of Two Americas

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6/22/2005 11:40 am

A Tale of Two Americas

Normally when you think of North America vs. South America, the contrast is great. The United States has always had a strong middle class while countries like Venezuela have had a very wide disparity of wealth. And while I am not suggesting that the United States is becoming a third world country, it is interesting to note that Venezuela's government and the United States' government are moving their respective countries in two different directions. Heading in the wrong direction, unfortunately, is the United States. The gap between the richest Americans and the poorest has not been this great since 1929 (gee, what happened that year?). It used to be that the gap between the richest Americans and the poorest was 20 fold; that was back in about 1960. Now, the gap is 75 fold and growing. According to the Economist magazine (not exactly a liberal rag), people born at the bottom of the economic ladder in the United States now have less of a chance to climb out of economic poverty than our neighbors in Canada or most countries in Europe. As a matter of fact, they warn that we are quickly becoming a class structured country where the "haves" and the "have-nots" are determined by, unfortunately, what family you are born into.

Consider these two separate eras in the lifetime of a baby-boomer: for every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90% of the population between 1950 and 1970, those in the top 0.01% earned an additional $162. That gap has since skyrocketed. For every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90% between 1990 and 2002, each taxpayer in the top bracket brought in an extra $18,000. This did not happen due to some strange gravitational force. Our trade policies, decline in education funding, and regressive taxation have all led to this growing disparity. Let's contrast this with what Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, is doing. Under Chavez, the state oil company spent more than 3.7 billion dollars on social and agricultural programs, housing, and other public projects (about one third of its earnings). Chavez has promised to keep up the spending and has declared 2005 the "year of the leap forward." The state oil company is building medical clinics and supporting government missions. Oil money helped build 15,000 homes for the poor in 2004, and this year 120,000 more are planned. Before Chavez, the state oil company never directly funded social programs. The top 90% of oil revenue in Venezuela went to a very small fraction of the Venezuelan public. They controlled all the money while the vast majority of people lived in shanties in the slums of Caracas.

I'm not suggesting the United States use Hugo Chavez's blueprint for helping lower and middle class people remedy economic disparity. However, I think it is note worthy that the country that supplies the United States with vast quantities of our oil supply has realized that it is better for everyone to share in the prosperity that is generated from a country's resources. Hugo may not be perfect, some have even called him "the poor man's thug," but for once wouldn't it be great if the United States had a president who went to bat for the most vulnerable, hard-working, and honest people rather than exacerbating the disparity between the "haves" and "have-nots."


Sly@wtdy.com

There is only one cause of the income gap and that is excess immigration into the United States caused by illegal immigration.

There is only one reason this has occurred and that is elected and appointed governmental officials have abandoned the rule of law to achieve the income gap.

There is only one objective of this malady and that is to change the demographics of the United States in order to end the United States.

There is only one group of people this serves: Traitors in all shapes and sizes in many different places and posts all the way to the White House.

They are few in number but due to their places and posts are in positions to weild great and perhaps permanent damage and harm to our nation, our citizens, our society and our futures.

Traitors needs to be expunged, our laws followed, and our borders secured.

It's really very simple.

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