Antartica is being populated due to global warming and for Antarctica to ensure a stable future the area has decided to have a market economy. A market economy is where the people and businesses are solely guiding the prices for products and services. With a finite amount of goods and resources, a scarcity is possible. With scarcity comes the desire and need to innovate and be more efficient with the resources. With the small amounts of resources that are available to the people of Antarctica, the people need to decide who obtains the scarce resources. People that are part of “the bubble” deserve to have the greatest access to the resource. This means the upper class of people because they can help find new ways to innovate and lower the cost
Time and time again we hear politicians and office holders preach the need for a powerful middle-class. You may then be surprised to hear that “about 82% of America’s net worth belongs to the top 20%, the next 80% of people only own about 18% of America’s wealth” (UCSC). Some may argue that this disproportion is the beauty of capitalism, the chance to create an empire. I argue that the proportions are simply unfair. Why is it that “ the average CEO makes 350X as much as his/her employee” (UCSC)?
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
With the rise of big business and industrialization came several problems associated with the economic boom. The rich were getting richer. The poor were getting poorer. The gap between the "haves" and the "have nots
According to Brooks, bobos are royalty in our present economy. Brooks claims that bobos will prevail because, “The meritocratic bobo class is rich with the sprit of self-criticism. It is flexible and amorphous enough to co-opt that which it does not already command.” In other words, unlike previous elite classes, whose methods were to exclude others, the bobo class welcomes anyone with the talent to join it, regardless of their background. Brooks attributes the changes of elite behavior to the creation of a “creative” class involved in advertising and marketing, computer programming, and new businesses.
Living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, our culture has naturally valued prestige and luxuries. We admire fancy items and often judge other individuals by the clothes they wear, the car they drive, and the schools that they attend. The “American Dream” serves as a motivational factor for people; believing that hard work and dedication can bring “success” to ones’ life. Although this is partially true, it is difficult for individuals in the middle class and lower class.
There has been much focus on the amount of power the upper one percent of
Recently, the recession has increased the wealth gap resulting in the rich getting richer and the poor to get poorer. This is an important issue facing society. As the poor and the middle class struggle for financial stability and wealth the top 1% of the rich continue to grow their assets. What is the reality of this issue? Is society’s perception of this issue accurate? How does one’s socioeconomic status influence success? There are many perspectives to this provocative topic and can vary when looking at them through an economical or a political lens. Often times, the wealthy are privileged with an unfair advantage over the poor.
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
In his article, Now That’s Rich, Paul Krugman discusses the state of the wealthy in America. He provides a critical account of the work ethic of the 1 percent, asserting that many of the country’s wealthy do not work in proportion to the money they have. He states, “The goal of [promoting the rise in college graduates] is to soften the picture, to make it seem as if we’re talking about ordinary white-collar professionals who get ahead through education and hard work. But many Americans are well-educated and work hard…Yet they don’t get the big bucks.” This claim illustrates a disparity in the economic system: hard work does not equate financial success. Krugman expands on this by explaining that wealth acquired by this group of people was only achieved because money they inherited. “These days a lot of top money managers’ income comes not from investing other people’s money but from returns on their own accumulated wealth—that is, the reason they make so much is the fact that they’re already very rich.” Krugman demonstrates a cyclical pattern of accumulated wealth, leaving no room for individuals of lower means to reach this status. Moreover, the advantage of the rich leads to a society that is “dominated by wealth,” and increases the gap between the rich and every one else. Krugman ultimately points out the hypocrisy of the rich’s resistance to increased taxes and asks his readers to think critically about how the rich arrived where they are.
...upper class, but you can be born in the upper class and throw your wealth away and end up on the street. This way that you decide your own future allows the Constitution to stay true that all Americans are born with equal potential.
The article goes on then to state that Russia and the United States maintain a "basis of claim" in the Antarctica, which means when the time comes they may take territory on the continent as their own. All these states, including ones who have no claims (such as China, which has been investing in the building their presence in the region), want what is in the Antarctic, but the treaty for the time being bars them from doing so. However with economic pressures mounting, and the climate warming, it is only a matter of time before someone decides to exploit the Antarctic
Peter Brimelow is a senior editor for Forbes magazine. The essay was written taken from Forbes magazine (July 4, 1994).
Rosenbaum, E. (2013, August 8). A new species? The elusive nature of the global middle class. Retrieved from http://www.cnbc.com/id/100949800
Income inequality continues to increase in today’s world, especially in the United States. Income inequality means the unequal distribution between individuals’ assets, wealth, or income. In the Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes, a liberal journalist, states the inequality gap between the rich and the poor are increasing widening, and there need to have things done - tax the rich, provide better education - in order to shortening the inequality gap. America is a meritocratic country, which means that everybody has equal opportunity to be successful regardless of their class privileges or wealth. However, equality of opportunity does not equal equality of outcomes. People are having more opportunities to find a better job, but their incomes are a lot less compared to the top ten percent rich people. In this way, the poor people will never climb up the ladder to high status and become millionaires. Therefore, the government needs to increase all the tax rates on rich people in order to reduce income inequality.
The accumulation of wealth has become an important facet of society because of the increasing materialistic ideology spreading in the world. In addition, there is a growing concern for people to move upwards in society through earning or making more money.