Wealth, Poverty, and The Other Guys

by Hans Hibbard

When we discussed in class about wealth and poverty I immediately thought about the end credits of this movie. "The Other Guys" is a buddy-cop-comedy, starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. They play two New York cops who stop a Ponzi scheme. The movie is hilarious and I encourage everyone to see it if you're looking for a good laugh, but it gets very serious at the end of the movie when the credits start to roll. The credits show how greedy people are that run corporations. Click play below to see what I'm talking about:

319:1 is the ratio of CEO salary to average employee salary. Just multiply your salary in 2010 by three hundred nineteen and that's how much more these greedy people are making than you. Can you believe these people make millions of dollars per year for dealing with the same work related stress levels as the rest of us. Our government bailed out these companies in 2008 even after they failed to keep their companies financially stable, and on top of that, the executives all gave themselves bonuses. Who gets a bonus for failing at their job?! I made a critical error last week at work and I was almost terminated. I wasn't given a beach house in Miami!

Just like the NFL, NHL, and MLB have salary caps for the players, corporations need to have salary caps as well. Even if you cap an executive's salary at $2,000,000 per year, that is still plenty of money for any American family of four to live, prosper, and have some money left over for retirement. It would help so many middle class and working class people have better lives if they invested the difference in salary to the people on the bottom of the ladder. Middle class and working class jobs are the back bone of these corporations anyway. We shouldn't have to work ten times as hard as the people on top only to receive low monetary recognition, and poor benefits. America can fix the poverty issue if just one corporation would cap the salaries, and invest more money into their line-level employees.

World Class Division Wealthy v. Poor

By: Deborah Crawford

    Their are so many subjects on which the world is divided. You are walking down a street and you see a homeless person. At that very moment what are you thinking. The average person's perception of this being, would be that this person is poor and doesn't want to do anything about it. Now you are walking in a wealthy neighborhood and you see a rich person. You think that this person was born into their money, or doesn't deserve it.  The world now has this renowned way of thinking, if a person isn't like you or in your situation they are outcasted.

     Based on today's reasoning, many people would view this photo the same way. The poor man has struggled all his life to not only provide for himself, but for his family too. On the other hand the wealthy man doesn't have to struggle. You would view the weight difference too. The skinny man has worked himself out trying to get to where he wants to be, while the bigger man has never had to work for his wealth. Someone in the poor man's position wouldn't have to know anything about the poor man but they would be routing for him, and would be against the rich man. What the artist didn't show in the picture is that that poor man is now the bigger man. Now that he has gotten where he is going, he is going to eat and be happy. The wealthy man has worked hard for his family and deserves to live a good life after hardship. 

In the picture u, the artist wants you to see that money buys you anything. Based on this she would be hated for what she has, and that is how the world teaches people.

     In the end people only see what they want to see. Everyone is judged acording to what is in the open. Work, determination, preserverance, and sorrow is not counted. No one wants to be reminded of the situation they are in, and hate people who aren't in it.

The Value of Status in the Work Society

By: Deborah Crawford

     At work there is a corporate chain of command. You have the C.E.O., president, vice president, director, manager, assistant manager, supervisor, and the lead worker. There is an invisible law, the employer employee code. What ever your employer says goes. The C.E.O. controls the president, the president controls the vice president, etc.





     Plagiarism flies in the work industry. Bosses take credit for work that isn't theirs. You just saved the company 30 thousand dollars, you think you're on your way to a promotion. You hand your boss the sales receipt, and he tells you good job. You have high expectations. Two days later they announce over the intercom that you boss found a way to save the company money. Nowadays this happens all too often, and with the employer employee policy there is nothing that can be done.

      Companies go to the ends of the world to save a buck. These days bosses don't believe in workers compensation. In order for a worker to receive workers compensation there seems to be a never ending line of doctors one has to see. The moment after a worker is supposed to be at work the clock starts ticking. Generally there is a seven minute grace period, but walk into any office nowadays and there is close to no grace period, or no grace period at all. You will get deducted for being a minute too late to work, breaks, and even bathroom breaks.




     Businesses have become outrageous. It is their way or the highway, solely based on the need to make money.

Upperclass

By William Davis



  What makes a person upperclass? Is it their neighorhood, their family heritage, or is it their money? There are a lot of factors taken into concideration when answering this question. What happens is that we evaluate their socioeconomic status( SES). Your socioeconomic status  is based on four important things which are your income, wealth, occupational prestige and education. Most upperclass people have a income of about $100.000 or better. Many upperclass people also have a lot of wealth which are assets such as land, properties and stocks.  Occupational prestige is basicly rating a job based its worthiness. Upperclass people have jobs such as Doctors, Lawyers, CEOs and Architects. Basicly the better your job the better rating you will receive. Doctors have a high occupational prestige.  Last but not least we have education which plays a key role in making the other 3 factors happen. Many upperclass people spend years in school to earn their masters degree and other awards associated with higher learning. This is just some of the main requirements to be considered an upperclass citizen. Inside the upperclass world you can be placed into 3 seperate catagories which  are upper-middle, upper-lower and upper-upper. The upper-middle class are the people  who make about $100,000 a year. Professions that fall in this class are Judges, Architects and Doctors.



Thurgood Marshall was a Judge on the Supreme Court which required a great of education and  isa very prestigous occupation which is why he is concidered a member of the Upper Middle Class.

Next in rank are the upper lower class. They have jobs that have 6 or 7 figure salaries. Most of the people in this rank are high level mangers, CEOs, big business owners. Famous members of this class are Steve Jobs(CEO of Apple), Bill Gates(Chairman of Microsoft), and Russell Simmons(Media and Fashion Mogul).
All  3 of these people have large incomes over 6 figures as well as large assets. I would talk about education but both Gates and Jobs dropped out of college. At the very top we have the upper-upper class. Just like the upper- lower class, they have high level jobs, very educated, own companies and have large amounts of wealth. What sets them apart is how many generations of family have wealth. For example, Bill Gates was the first of his family to achieve wealth because he helped create Microsoft. A perfect example of an upper-upper family is the Rockefeller Family. They have had wealth passed down for the last 4 generations and have had wealth for over 100 years. The whole Rockefeller family is wealthy. John D. Rockefeller who is currently the richest man of all time, started his oil comany in 1870 which lasted 40 years. According to Forbes, John D Rockefeller's net worth was 663.4 billion dollars. His children and Grandchildren have racked up their own personal net worth by starting foundations, owning banks(Citibank) and making good stock investments. Certain members of the family have achieved well respected statuses such as a gold medal winner, governor and even Vice President.

In conclusion  to become a member of upperclass society, you have to have a high socioeconomic status which includes a large income, a great education, occupational prestige and some wealth. I think that it is sad that people in this class that worked hard in school and at their jobs are only the upper-middle class which is basicly the lowest of the upperclass while the people that got rich off an idea are the wealthest people in world and most them are not that educated. The  upper-middle class are the only ones that worked to be in the upperclass.

(Below are two videos, the first one show the top 10 richest people of all time and the other video shows the top 10 riches people today)