Nobel Prize winner, professor, author and economist, Joseph E. Stiglitz, wrote “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%.” Joseph E. Stiglitz served during the Clinton administration as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and is former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. Throughout his piece Stiglitz argues how America’s economy is not likely to succeed in the future. Stiglitz creates a strong and credible argument throughout his piece by using the appeals of ethos, pathos and logos. In “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%” Stiglitz creates an argument about how the economy is not likely to succeed by applying the rhetorical appeal of ethos. Stiglitz demonstrates ethos when he writes, “During the savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s—a scandal whose dimensions, by today’s standards, seem almost quaint—the …show more content…
Stiglitz applies the use of pathos all throughout his argument but one specific time is when he wrote, “This new inequality goes on to create new distortions, undermining efficiency even further. To give just one example, far too many of our most talented young people, seeing the astronomical rewards, have gone into finance rather than into fields that would lead to a more productive and healthy economy”(Stiglitz747). When I read this the audience feels that so many talented people do not follow their dreams, but rather go into to fields like finance and others that do not even benefit the economy. When creating an effective argument that pulls in your readers you need to appeal to them on a personal level. If you can pull readers in and connect them to real life situations they are more likely to continue reading. Applying pathos throughout the piece helps Stiglitz’s argument become more effective. This creates feelings and emotions that make the readers become invested in the piece the same way Stiglitz’s
Leading up to the year 1981, America had fallen into a period of “stagflation”, a portmanteau for ‘stagnant economy’ and ‘high inflation’. Characterized by high taxes, high unemployment, high interest rates, and low national spirit, America needed to look to something other than Keynesian economics to pull itself out of this low. During the election of 1980, Ronald Reagan’s campaign focused on a new stream of economic policy. His objective was to turn the economy into “a healthy, vigorous, growing economy [which would provide] equal opportunities for all Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination.” Reagan’s policy, later known as ‘Reaganomics’, entailed a four-point plan which cut taxes, reduced government spending, created anti-inflationary policy, and deregulated certain products. Though ‘Reaganomics’ was successful both at controlling “stagflation” and promoting economic growth, it has and always will be an extremely controversial topic regarding the redistribution of wealth.
...visions and relates to us a powerful social evolution based on the ever-widening gap between the majority of the American population (“the 99%”) and the wealthy minority (“the 1%”) (Zinn, p. 619-621, 1995). Zinn’s “prophecy” of a society where the “rich get richer and the poor get poorer” has been attacked time and again by conservatives and others. Considering the events of the last several years, the banking crisis, and the rise of the Occupy Movement in 2011, Zinn’s theories regarding the 99% are amazingly perceptive, even predictive of 21st Century times.
With each class comes a certain level in financial standing, the lower class having the lowest income and the upper class having the highest income. According to Mantsios’ “Class in America” the wealthiest one percent of the American population hold thirty-four percent of the total national wealth and while this is going on nearly thirty-seven million Americans across the nation live in unrelenting poverty (Mantsios 284-6). There is a clear difference in the way that these two groups of people live, one is extreme poverty and the other extremely
... warn them about their future in the financial market. Even though Miller wrote this novel in 1991 about the trends of the 1980s, the graphic novel is still current today. In fact the distribution is even more skewed then it was 20 years ago. “As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers)” (Domhoff). This data shows that we should be extremely worried about the trend of the distribution of wealth in the United States. A more equal distribution is healthy for average citizens because it allows us to thrive in an environment which gives us more opportunities to move up in the economical society.
New Nationalism focused on eradicating economic inequality. In 2007, the top 1 percent of Americans owned 23.5 percent of the nation’s wealth (Pear, 2011). This problem has increased, not gone away, since Roosevelt addressed it in 1910. Unfairness in the tax code has become a prominent topic of political discussion. President Obama called for alterations to the U.S. tax system, which allows millionaires to pay lower rates than middle-class workers like teachers and firefighters, in his 2012 State of the Union address (“Remarks of President Barack Obama – As prepared for delivery State of the Union Address,” 2012.). In December, the president traveled to Osawatomie to speak. He echoed Roosevelt’s New Nationalism, saying he believes “this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share” (Fox, 2011). Although he spoke in Os...
Did you know that the top 1 percent of Americans hold almost 40 percent of the country’s total wealth? Or that the same 1 percent has 288 times as much wealth as the median American household? Those are staggering and shocking statistics that present a grim reality. In response, activists have created the Occupy Wall Street group and have developed its trademark slogan, “We are the 99 percent.” The motto refers to the economic struggle between the bottom 99 percent of Americans and the wealthiest 1 percent, who are rapidly accumulating the majority of national wealth. The large income gap in the U.S. has caused and will continue to result in economic issues, social chaos, and political injustice.
Every child dreams of meeting or becoming just like their favorite character. Kids will do just about anything to get their parents to buy the product. You can have any type of power you want you just have to try one of the pieces of candy and watch the magic appear within you. Remember it only lasts 24 hours. Ethos, pathos, and logos is expressed throughout the commercial and on the box the candy’s come in. If you want to see what will happen to you then try our product today. It really works!
Smith, Noah. “How to Fix America's Wealth Inequality: Teach Americans to Be Cheap.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Pub., 12 March 2013. Web. 06 April 2014. .
The age of the Great Depression was littered with varying stories of extreme poverty rivaled by the contrasting stories of the .1 percent of society that possessed extreme wealth. President Hoover called the depression “a passing incident in our national lives” (cite 1) which proved to be a gross underestimation of the severity of the situation. The previous decades that brought roaring success and expanding technology was thought to be a period of great success that was earned through hard work and fluid government; and so when the economy collapsed blame turned inward and failure felt deserved just the same.
Sachs, J. D. (2011). Why America Must Revive its Middle Class. Time. 178(14). Ps. 30-32.
While the the 1%, are secured, no one is addressing the rest of the people. As the economy flourishes, housing, higher education and health care, and child care increases with it to the point where 30 percent of a person’s income goes towards housing. People are finding it impossible to purchase a house with their middle class incomes. People begin to fall out of the once stable middle class because too much is needed to be sacrificed in order to live in a stable home. In the shrinking middle class, “40% or more of the residents live below the poverty
Reich, Robert B. “Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer.” A World of Ideas:
Since the unemployment rate was high for a long period of time it began to make America’s wealth distribution even more unequal. In 2007, slightly before the recession, the top 1% wealthiest’s share of America’s total wealth was 24% (Gitlin 7). After the peak of the recession in 2011, the top 1%’s share had ballooned to 40% and the bottom 80% of Americans owned less than 10% (Jordan 2). The 1%’s wealth had jumped 16% in four years because of the loss of jobs by middle and lower class Americans (Gitlin 7). This created a situation in which the wealthiest were getting wealthier and the middle and lower class were getting poorer. It is obvious that a system that continues to work in this fashion is very unfair and is not going to work properly. This sense of immorality with the current direction in which the economy is moving and the built up frustration of this system are just some of the many factors that sparked the original protestors to create Occupy.
Meanwhile, the wealthiest 1 percent took in 19 percent of America’s income in 2012—their highest share since 1928 (McClelland 551). Noting that 1928 was one year before the Great Depression, similar levels of income inequality should be cause for concern. In addition, between 1970 and today, the share of the nation’s income that went to the middle class—households
American society today is epitomized by the growing divide between rich and poor. What is significant about this fact is that both ends of the spectrum are accelerating away from each other, with poor individuals sliding further still into the doldrums of poverty, while those that have enjoyed success in the past to a large degree continue to accumulate even larger sums of riches.