InCome Inequality and the Economic Crisis in America

Inequality in America has become a wound that that has gotten infected, it just won't heal. Timeline shows that in 1915 the University of Wisconsin statistician Willford I. King published an article called "The Wealth and Income of the People of the United States", which showed that the richest one percent of America owned 15% to 18% of the nation's income. From 1980 to today the richest 1% of America has absorbed 80% to 95% of Americas income, which doesn't leave much the rest of America to pay the bills. Obviously the system needs to be fixed or altered so that the distribution of Americas income has a better balance. One of the issues that I have with how the system is setup is that the problem isn't hidden, it's viewable. Economist know it's there and top financial leaders view it a problem, yet fixes have been hardly a temporary one. We can't afford to send CEO's on retreats while we are sending others packing home without a job. American needs to start healing this gap in wealth so that we may grow in a more efficient way for all of America.

In an article called "The future of jobs in America" written by Anthony Mason stated that " One in six Americans, 17 percent, is underemployed. That's nearly 25 million people who are out of work, have given up looking, or been forced to take a part time job. It also went on to state " The recession has wiped out 15 percent of our manufacturing workforce. That's more than 2 million jobs that will likely never come back." Now for some of those 25 million people who are out of work; they also lost their way to pay for food, shelter, and other necessities in their lives. If the number is one in six Americans, that means that we don't have to look far from ourselves to see that one person. Even worse maybe we are one of them our selves or it's one of our close family members. Through many different types of media I see stories about people losing their job(s) and not knowing what to do to provide even the basics for their families. In Michael Moores documentary " Capitalism: A Love Story" he showed a family that lost their job and home and ended up living in the back of a truck. How do you tell your kids that they lost everything and then look at them in the eye without feeling as a failure. Another Family in Michael Moores documentary had lost their father to cancer and since he was the only one with a job, a wife and two kids were left behind without an income. The mother lost her husband and the kids lost their dad, but the biggest issue is that the company that he had worked for gained close to a million dollars. Why? because they took out an insurance policy on him called Dead Peasant Policy in case he died, yet none of that money made it to the family. What is the "Dead Peasant Policy" and how does it help families in case the lost a loved one? Well, it doesn't help anyone but the company that employee worked for. Mike Myers has a national law practice involving class actions and commercial litigation stated "Dead Peasant Insurance is sometimes used as a shorthand reference for life insurance policies that insure a company's rank-and-file employees and name the company as the beneficiary. This means that the company receives the life insurance benefits when the covered employees die, which is also known as the janitors insurance." Here is a better plan would help families and allow companies to take out a dead peasant policy on their employees. What if the policy was changed that it required the employees signature to allow permission for the companies to do this and a percentage of it goes to the company, I'm think about 30% at max. This way the system protects the employees and in case something happens to him or her their family is protected. The 30% allows the company to pay for the cost of the policy and make a small profit as an insurance holder, which than the name could also be change to "A better peasant" insurance. If this policy was in place that family that lost their father would have had about $700,000 to help them get by, which would help the mother feel secure and put their 2 kids through college. With the 30% that the company makes for literally not doing anything, it's like they just got handed a $300,000 check for being humane.

What drives this income inequality system in America today? The wealthy call it success and a drive for a better life. Well I call it an incursion into the people who need help and work hard to earn it. Wealth doesn't have to do with money, but the power of influence of the money one owns. Example, let's say you own a business and certain regulations is cutting into your profits and you want it fixed. Well, a person of wealth simply has contacts to help change some regulations or hide it so the wealthy can go back to making more money. While the wealthy is back to making more money, the labors are now working more hours to increase productivity with the same pay. How did this happen? how could an employer do this without regulations being involved to protect the workers? Certain companies in America has taken up a policy that is called Chinese overtime, which is a barely legal policy. Let's say one get paid $300 per week for 40 hours and one has worked 60 hours this week overtime. Divide $300 from 60 hours and you get 5, then you multiply the 5 by 20 hours and that person gets paid $100. That person just work 20 hours for less than the minimum wage. This is all because you as a business owner wanted to have more wealth. Income inequality is driven by wealth, which gives a person the power to make changes at any cost. This one of the issues adds to income inequality making the issue worse and further from the solution. How about a new policy called "Working Overtime" that would help labors earn better overtime payouts. Make Chinese overtime illegal and protect workers from being taken advantage off. It should be a policy that pays out more with more hours you work not the opposite.

Recently in December 2010 a journalist for ABC news put out a web article called "Top CEO Bonuses of 2010" it stated that this year Goldman Sachs, AIG, JP Morgan, and other companies payout to their CEO's in bonuses was about $1.6 billion dollars, with some receiving about $10 million each. While CEO's are receiving these