Friday, March 20, 2015

Income Inequality's Pitchfork in the Road

Summary:
When you first read the article title, you may go, “what does pitchforks have to do with inequality?” Well, as the article progresses, it talks about a study that is being done by Oxfam International. The study states that by the next year, more than half of the world’s wealth will be owned by the top one percent of the population. However, this presentation had little actual affect at the gathering in Davos, Switzerland. This gathering was of the global financial elites at the World Economic Summit. However, when a speech last year done by Mark Carney, the Bank of England’s governor, on this very topic, he made the room silent and uncomfortable. His words, plus the words of Oxfam International, seem to mirror the voices of several highly respected individuals. Examples of these are the Dalai Lama, Pope Frances and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. To go back to the pitchfork in the title, Nick Hanauer, a billionaire that helped start the Amazon Empire, has stated “If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequalities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us.”

Analysis:

As someone who is not considered to be wealthy, I believe that the “pitchfork” analogy is quite frankly a great way to put it. I believe that we, as the people of the world, notice this inequality a lot faster than those that are in the top one percent. The world is slowly moving to a way that there is no way to actually live in a household with only one income, even in other countries. As for where I am from, I have a paycheck of my own, but my siblings are too young to work and only a father to bring in the income to help keep the family above ground. It is hard to go through life with only one income and this is just my family. Knowing that there are others in the world who have the same issues around the income of the family that I do, then it is easy to realize that the inequality of the world is glaring down on us.


Elizabeth Causby

March 20, 2015
10:59pm

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