Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos And Warren Buffett Have More Money Than The Poorest 50% Of The U.S. Population Combined

The problem is not that we have a few people that are rich – the problem is that we have so many that are poor.  As you will see below, three extremely wealthy individuals have as much money as the poorest half of the nation combined.  In a free market capitalist society, there are always going to be some that do better than others, and there is nothing wrong with that.  But in our society today, there are so few that are doing well.  At this point a majority of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and “one in five households have zero or negative net worth”…

In the United States, the 400 richest individuals now own more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the population and the three richest own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent, while pervasive poverty means one in five households have zero or negative net worth.

Those are just several of the striking findings of Billionaire Bonanza 2017, a new report (pdf) published Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) that explores in detail the speed with which the U.S. is becoming “a hereditary aristocracy of wealth and power.”

That means that if you have no debt and a single dime in your pockets, you have more wealth than one-fifth of the entire country.

Okay, so let’s talk about the three men that have more wealth than the poorest 50 percent of the U.S. population combined.  Those three men are Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, and Warren Buffett.  I don’t want to take anything away from what those three have accomplished, because we need more risk takers and entrepreneurs.

Sadly, the level of small business creation has fallen in every presidential administration going all the way back to George H.W. Bush, and the percentage of Americans that are self-employed is hovering near all-time record lows.

As a nation, we desperately need to return to a culture that encourages free market capitalist thinking.  We want young men and women to create, invent, innovate and start new ventures.  But instead, today our culture encourages young people to become dependent on the government and on the big corporations, and as a result the middle class is evaporating.

As I discussed above, at this point 20 percent of all U.S. households have “either zero or negative wealth”…

The rise at the wealthiest end of society comes as one in five US households live in what the report’s authors call the “underwater nation”, with either zero or negative wealth. Inequality is even more stark among minorities. Three in 10 black households and 27% of Latino ones have zero or negative wealth, compared with 14% of white families.

In recent years, unprecedented intervention by global central banks has created an absolutely enormous stock market bubble, but the real economy has continued to struggle.

Just look at what is happening to Sears.  This week they announced that they lost between $525 million and $595 million during the 3rd quarter of 2017.

How in the world do you do that?

If they had their employees doing nothing all day but flushing one dollar bills down the toilet, I still don’t think that they could lose that much money in three months.

Sears is going to sell 140 stores in a desperate attempt to stay afloat, but many believe that this is simply delaying the inevitable.  In fact, one prominent analyst named Bill Dreher believes that Sears will never be profitable again…

One Wall Street analyst is beginning to doubt whether Sears Holdings will ever be profitable again, as the 124-year-old retailer struggles for liquidity and same-store sales evaporate.

“Sears’ operational performance is clearly NOT improving, and we grow increasingly concerned whether the company will ever return to profitability,” wrote Susquehanna analyst Bill Dreher in a note to clients Wednesday. “Further highlighting the company’s weakened position is the reality that manufacturers are increasingly demanding tighter payment and/or withholding products.”

Once upon a time, Sears was the number one shopping destination for the middle class.

But like the middle class in America, the best days for Sears are now long gone.

If we want to restore our economy to greatness, we need a vibrant middle class.

And in order to have a vibrant middle class, we need to have a system that encourages entrepreneurs and small businesses.  Free markets work if you allow them to, but unfortunately today we are strangling our entrepreneurs and small businesses with rules, regulations, red tape and oppressive levels of taxation, and until we change our ways we are going to continue to get the same very poor results.

The post Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos And Warren Buffett Have More Money Than The Poorest 50% Of The U.S. Population Combined appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

The Hot Dog Vendor is Not Alone: Cops Frequently Terrorize Entrepreneurs—Including Children

Juan the Hot Dog vendor became a viral sensation on the internet this week after a video was published that showed a police officer giving him a ticket for not having a permit, and then taking all of the cash out of his wallet.

As the internet watched in horror, thousands of people responded by donating to a GoFundMe page for Juan. While the page’s initial goal was $10,000 to cover legal fees and financial losses, it has raised over $80,000 in the last week.

The important thing to remember is that the UC Berkeley officer’s treatment of Juan the Hot Dog vendor is not a rare occurrence—police have a history of targeting enterprisers and entrepreneurs, including children running neighborhood lemonade stands and teenagers attempting to earn extra money by shoveling snow for their neighbors.

Advertisment

Children Improperly Selling Lemonade

Two sisters, ages 7 and 8, had their lemonade stand shut down by police in Tyler, Texas, in June 2015. While the officers who interfered acted as though they were heroically saving the city from the two young girls who dared to attempt to sell lemonade without a permit, the girls explained that their mission was to raise $100 to take their dad to a local waterpark for Father’s Day.

A 10-year-old girl in in Orange County, California, was targeted by police in September 2016, for the crime of running an “illegal” lemonade stand. Instead of admiring her entrepreneurial aspirations, and the fact that she was charging less than a dollar for a small cup of fresh juice, police insisted that she needed a $3,500 permit in order to continue operating the stand.

READ MORE:  "It Hurts Mommy" School Cop Suspended after Attacking Autistic Boy for No Reason

This summer, a 5-year-old girl became the latest victim in the “War on Lemonade Stands” after four police officers targeted her stand in east London. She was issued a $200 ticket for operating the lemonade stand without a permit. While the fact that four officers were devoting their time to ensuring that a 5-year-old girl did not harm the public by selling them lemonade is one thing—the fact that instead of just asking the family to close up their stand, the officers issued the poor girl a ticket of $200 is absolutely ridiculous.

Teenagers Improperly Shoveling Snow and Selling Bottled Water

Two teenage boys in Bridgewater, New Jersey, felt the wrath of the police state in January 2015 when they prepared for an oncoming winter storm by going door-to-door and advertising their snow-shoveling services to neighbors. The high school students were reprimanded by police, who insisted that in order to receive any compensation for helping their neighbors rid their driveways of snow, they needed a $450 permit that would be valid for 180 days.

Three teenage boys were apprehended and detained by police in Washington D.C. in June, for the crime of improperly selling bottled water. The boys, who were offering bottles of drinking water to tourists visiting the Smithsonian Castle, were not charged for their heinous actions. However, they were detained by “undercover” officers in plainclothes, and the fact that the boys were forced to sit handcuffed in public until the officers decided they could leave, created a public spectacle.

Adults Improperly Selling Food and Flowers

Just as Juan the Hot Dog Vendor was recently targeted by police, food vendors in Sacramento, California, were subjected to similar treatment in May. Armed agents raided a local park where they seized food carts and destroyed food, all over the claim that the vendors did not have permits. However, it should be noted that the majority of the food vendors present had applied for permits—they just had not yet been granted.

READ MORE:  Texas Town Experiences 61% Drop in Crime After Firing Their Police Department

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office took to Facebook in May to brag about successfully getting another hardened criminal off of the streets in San Lorenzo, California. However, the suspect in question was apprehended for the heinous crime of selling fruits and vegetables on the side of the road.

The internet responded with criticism of the officers’ heroic actions, with one user reminding the sheriffs that, “legality does not equal morality,” and another user writing, “Justify however you want, if a deed doesn’t have an identified victim, it’s not a crime and you become the criminal. Badges don’t grant privileges of immorality.”

Police in Perris, California, saved residents from the danger of a woman attempting to earn money by selling flowers in July. Instead of attempting to talk to the woman, the officer who approached her decided to grab her. Then when the woman, who was clearly frightened, tried to move away, the officer grabbed her by her hair and attacked her.

“Legality does NOT equal morality.”

Just because something is legal does not mean that it is right. The idea that police are utilizing their taxpayer-funded time in the best way possible when they are issuing tickets to young children for operating a lemonade stand, or to teenagers shoveling snow for their neighbors, or to a woman attempting to sell flowers, raises serious questions about their priorities and why “policing for profit” is taking precedence over crimes that actually have victims.

Eco Artists Build Interactive Dive Site that Doubles as Artificial Coral Reef

A group of artists, environmentalists, entrepreneurs, and locals gathered in mid-April along the Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands to witness an exciting moment: The sinking of the Kodiak Queen, 1 of 5 boats that survived Pearl Harbor. But this wasn’t for entertainment purposes. The ship had been transformed by the group months before into both a tourist attraction, and a way of drawing attention and conservation efforts to the region’s dying coral reef populations. [1]

Source: Inhabitat

The volunteers gave the boat a thorough cleaning and transformed its chambers into a sort-of interactive art piece, including a hollow rebar and mesh kraken with 80-foot tentacles that extend along the length of the deck. Once the Kodiak Queen reached the ocean floor, it would become the Project YOKO BVI Art Reef, an interactive dive site.

The project is now the world’s largest underwater art installation.

There was a tense moment on the shore, when the audience thought the boat might tip over, compromising much of the artists’ work. Fortunately, the Kodiak Queen remained upright for her journey, drawing cheers from the crowd.

Aydika James, the art director at Secret Samurai Productions, a collective of artists working toward solving real-world problems through art, said:

“Watching this ship, which has so much history and so many hours put into it, go down was a joyful thing. It felt like a beginning.”

James is also a member of Maverick1000, a group of entrepreneurs who meet annually on Sir Richard Branson’s private Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands.

Read: Great Barrier Reef in Bad Shape, but not Dead yet

In addition to being a symbol of artistic expression and entertainment for divers, Project YOKO also serves as a new artificial reef that provides a foundation for corals and sponges to grow upon, that will also house fish, such as the threatened Goliath groupers. [2]

A Goliath grouper swims with other fish

BVI Art Reef’s goal is to “mobilize a network of researchers, philanthropists, and artists to solve marine health problems through the Power of Play.”

The downed ship is furbished with “an emerging technology called environmental DNA, or eDNA, to collect data on the entire marine ecosystem around the vessel.”

Now that the Kodiak Queen rests at the bottom of the ocean, the project’s organizers have started working with local BVI dive operators to ensure divers submit a $10 donation that will go to marine health research and children’s swim education.

Sources:

[1] Fast Company

[2] Collective Evolution

Images Source:

Inhabitat

---

---

About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.