You’d think that the association with Adolf Hitler would’ve made that particular hairstyle-and-moustache combo unwearable forever. Perhaps this guy’s trying to rehabilitate its image.
For those of you who don’t know Toronto Batman, here’s the video that made him famous:
Here’s a video that’s getting a lot of attention on Facebook as well as Reddit: Wealth Inequality in America. The figures cited in the video are nothing new; you’d be surprised how valuable the act of “merely” gathering information into a single place can be.
Here’s a still of the video showing what people see as an ideal distribution of wealth would look like. By definition, it’s a bit pie-in-the-sky, with nobody below the poverty line:
Here’s what people think the wealth distribution in the U.S. is. As the video says, while it’s not ideal, it ‘s still not too bad:
And now, the actual distribution of wealth:
It’s so skewed that the top 5 percent’s wealth is off the chart. Even the incomes are in the 90th percentile are dwarfed by those in the 95th, and the 99th — that is, the top 1 percent — make so much that representing their wealth on the same-scale chart requires giving them a lot of extra columns.
When people with money talk about the redistribution of wealth, they’re trying to sell you the story of “makers” and “takers”, and that it’s the lazy poor who’ve been sucking up your wealth. The numbers say otherwise, but luckily for them, lots of people tend to go with their gut rather than do the math, so you end up getting a situation like this:
A few weeks ago I visited a friend of mine who manages a trillion dollars. No joke. A trillion. If I told you the name of the family he worked for you would say, “they have a trillion? Really?” But that’s what happens when $10 million compounds at 2 percent over 200 years.
He said, “look out the windows.” We looked out at all the office buildings around us. “What do you see?” he said. “I don’t know.” “They’re empty! All the cubicles are empty. The middle class is being hollowed out.” And I took a closer look. Entire floors were dark. Or there were floors with one or two cubicles but the rest empty. “It’s all outsourced, or technology has taken over for the paper shufflers,” he said.
“Not all the news is bad,” he said. “More people entered the upper class than ever last year.” But, he said, more people are temp staffers than ever.
If you took an accounting class and were paying attention, you might have realized that as far as your business’ books are concerned, employees are liabilities and furniture are assets. Hiring people is a last-resort measure; it’s the thing you do when there’s no other way to meet your customers’ demands. Investor and entrepreneur Nick Hanauer points this out in his TED talk on wealth inequality:
In that same talk, he also shows how well the super-rich have done over the past three decades:
The gains made by the super-rich are also pointed out in the Wealth Inequality in America video. Like the narrator, I’m sure that a lot of the super-rich have worked pretty hard for their money, but I’m also sure that they haven’t worked 400 times as hard. And there’s no shortage of cases to cite in which they’ve worked hard to make sure the money stays in their pockets at your expense in ways both small and large (and in some cases, Monty Burns-esque, such as the billionaire who wanted to stop a cross-border bridge that would’ve cost taxpayers nothing because it competed with his).
“We certainly don’t have to go all the way to socialism to find something that is fair for hard-working Americans,” says the video’s narrator, and I agree. “We don’t even have to achieve what most of us consider might be ideal. All we need to do is wake up and realize that the reality in this country is not at all what we think it is.”
We might have to do a little more than that, but it would be a start.
To end this article on a lighter note and grant equal time to an opposing view, here’s College Humor‘s We are the One Percent:
Today, a mellow day at home. After a lovely week here, the Special Lady’s gone back to Tampa; thankfully, I’ll see her there in a couple of weeks. It’s time for me to get on with some spring cleaning, which includes some furniture hacking and souping up a couple of my computers — the geeky equivalent of hanging out in the garage under an old but cherished car. This calls for a little caffeination, hence the motto of the day, shown above.
This blog still gets a lot of hits for a post from 2007 titled Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Maple Cinnamon Glaze. Unfortunately, the recipe to which I linked has long since vanished, leaving more than a few readers disappointed.
Here’s the recipe, which I broke into paragraphs to make for easier reading:
Maple Bacon Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 sticks (1 cup) butter1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon maple extract
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 egg
2 cups cake flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup bacon (maple flavored if you want), cooked and crumbled (maybe about a pound)
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
Kosher salt for sprinkling
Set one stick of butter out to soften. Cook the other stick of the butter on medium heat on the stove until browned. Allow to cool to room temperature and is no longer liquid (feel free to put it in the refrigerator or freezer)*.
Beat in the sugar. Add the extracts, syrup, and egg. Beat until well combined.
Sift in the flours, soda, and salt. Mix to combine.
Stir in the chips and bacon bits, saving some for garnishing the top if you wish.
Chill the dough for at least an hour or until the dough is pretty firm (again, put it in the freezer if you’re impatient).
Preheat the oven to 375º. Shape cookies into balls of your preferred size. Sprinkle with any leftover bacon bits and some kosher salt. Bake cookies for 9-12 minutes or until edges or golden brown. I like to press a few chocolate chips in the top when they’re done baking.
Can’t stand it, I know you planned it
I’m-a set it straight, this Watergate…
I can’t stand rockin’ when I’m in here
Because your crystal ball ain’t so crystal clear
So while you sit back and wonder why
I got this fuckin’ thorn in my side
Oh my God, it’s a mirage
I’m tellin’ y’all it’s sabotage
The problem with having Kirk listen to the Beasties is that another one of their songs makes a very clear Star Trek reference — Intergalactic:
Now when I wrote graffiti my name was Slop
If my rap’s soup my beats is stock
Step from the tables when I start to chop
I’m a lumber jack: DJ Adrock
If you try to knock me you’ll get mocked
I’ll stir fry you in my wok
Your knees’ll start shaking and your fingers pop
Like a pinch on the neck from Mr. Spock
Of course, a true Trek fan would simply say that the explanation is simple: the Beasties are Bajoran Prophets — the outside-linear-time aliens from the wormhole in Deep Space Nine.
Now that I’ve mentioned a couple of Beasties tunes, it’d be wrong of me not to include them in this post…
