Spiritual Forum

When I first learned about the distribution of personal or privately held wealth  (DOW), I reacted like most people do. I haven't been able to find the words to match the emotion.  I am still coming to terms as to what I think about the whole issue.   I did conclude that every case had to be treated separately. I had to be honest with myself and ask: What if it was me?   Getting a grasp on Wealth in America is not easy due to the vast amounts of money in play. In order to visualize the distribution of wealth, we first have to choose a familiar object to represent wealth, and present those objects in terms of volume. In this model I’m going to express wealth in terms of time, where $1 equals 1 second..  The life expectancies listed below are measures of wealth converted into seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years . The lower two percentiles represent the 40% of Americans with the least wealth, only .3% share of the total 54Tr. That .3% is shared by the 128 Million (49,780,000 families) in the lowest 40% leaving each family with an average wealth of $3254  each 3254 seconds = 54 minutes .  Compare that to the times allotted to the wealthy and note the disparity!

 RANK              FAMILIES         % OF TOTAL           LIFE EXPECTANCY

Lowest   40%      49,780,000                 .3 %                      54   minutes           

Next       20%      24,800,000              4.0 %                    24 hrs.                                            

Next       20%      24,800,000           11.8 %                          3 days

Next       10%      12,400,000           12.0 %                     6 days  2 hrs

  90  %   OF THE POPULATION  (288,000,000) THEIR  SHARE OF  WEALTH  GONE IN   6   DAYS

Top 10 %   (90 TO 99%)

Bottom     5 %       6,200,000            10.8%                   10 days  21 hrs.

Next         4 %       4,960,000            25.1%               1 mo.   1 day    16hours

99 %    OF THE POPULATION   (316,000,000)     GONE  IN   ONE MONTH

Top 1 %  The One Percenters  broken into subgroups (note the no. of families  )

Bot. half   .5 %         620,000              3.8%               1 mo.   8 days    6 hrs.

Next         .25%        310,000             3.16%              2 mo.   3 days  22 hrs.

Next         .1%          124,000              5.5 %                  9 mo.   8 days

next          .1%          124,000           18.4 %              2 years  6 mo. 15 days

next          .047%          5,800             1.47%             4 years  4 mo.   4 days

Top 394    .003%            398              3.47%              149 years  3 mo. 22 days

Walmart Waltons               4            35 Billion ea.     1,109 years  10 mo. 6 days

Warren Buffet                    1            54 Billion            1,712 years  4 mo.   3 days

Bill Gates                           1            72 Billion            2,283 years  1 mo.   8 days

NOTE:  IT IS NOT MY INTENTION TO JUDGE THESE PEOPLE.  THEY CREATED THEIR FORTUNES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PRINCIPLES INHERENT TO CAPITALISM. EVEN SO , IT IS HARD TO RECONCILE  IMMENSE DISPARITY THAT EXISTS BETWEEN THE POOREST 50 MILLION FAMILIES AND THE WEALTHIEST 400 FAMILIES  (54 MINUTES  >>>>   TWO THOUSAND + YEARS. )  I HAVE CONCLUDE THAT THE SYSTEM MAY HAVE SOME FAULTS AND TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS.......ARE WE REALLY SUPPOSE TO BELIEVE THAT'S THE BEST PLAN,   THAT IN THE PAST 30 YEARS , WITH ALL  OUR TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES AND CREATIVE INNOVATION,  NOBODY CAN COME UP WITH A BETTER ECONOMIC PLAN !