Which statistic on wealth inequality in the US (discussed on p. 29) made the biggest impression on you? Explain why?

The statistic of going from rags to riches surprised me the most, because it clearly states that most people die in the class, they are born in.

What could be some of the implications of living in a society that has such huge wealth inequalities? Do you see this dynamic getting played out in everyday life in our society? How so? Example?

The implications of living in a society that has huge wealth inequalities is exactly what we are living today. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Right now, to be in the top tier 1 percent you need to be able to invest in stocks, own your own businesses and create your own profit without providing any labor. A middle-class working adult is not being paid for their labor in the way they should. The expenses of everyday life don’t allow for you to even save money enough to try to invest a measly 2000 in a stock. A lot of people live paycheck to paycheck. Because we are not being paid enough money at work. A lot of people have good careers and still do not get paid what they should be making.

1. The statistic on wealth inequality in the U.S that made the biggest impression on me was on page 29, it stated, “Capitalists like to say they are “putting their money to work,” but money as such does not work. What they mean is that they are using their money to put human labor to work, paying workers less in wages than they produce in sales. That’s how money “grows.” This made an impression on me because we are just viewed by them as nothing but a working class. what they get from us is surplus value is important to us because that’s how capitalism works, they hire you in jobs to increase the value of what you have and then they keep the extra value for themselves. The surplus value is how people are working at an office and you are done from your 9 – 5 pm shift and you finish at let’s say 1 pm you still have to use labor power and your boss is getting surplus value off of you which means the work you are doing those extra hours your bosses profit from them not you since they are still going to pay you the same wage for the labor you exchanged with them from 9 – 1 pm. We depend on so many commodities such as health care, electricity, phones, the internet, etc. If people didn’t work it wouldn’t be beneficial to our daily lives, because like I said we depend on people when we want fast food, go to the hospital, etc. Things are valued more when more human labor was put into them and it makes our survival possible as a society.
2. We are dealing with lots of implications living in this society that has huge wealth inequalities. Let’s start with college students there are lots of adults who can’t still manage to pay off their college debts and struggle to make ends meet if they don’t get a good job, even if they get a career job they still struggle to pay off college loans. Many people end up not wanting to go to college because they fear they will have to deal with college debts later on and I think some people just don’t want college debts affecting their credit if they want to buy a house or buy a car. An example of wealth inequalities in this society is how wealthy people get to go to yale I was watching a video that spoke about how some parents were paying the universities admissions extra for the kids to get a spot at that university and I think it’s unfair. The majority of wealthy people do act in unfair ways to get what they want for their kids in school. Like some wealthy students were even paying students to do their homework they shouldn’t have it easy just because they are wealthy they have to work twice as hard as the ones that work to get scholarships to go to the universities they want, they need to show that they care for their care as much as their parents made it possible for them to get in the schools.

1. The capitalist put money into something and the people that build it is the labores with the work they do they get the money to barley make it and live that is unfair because the workers work long ours and some do get paied little money 

2. In our society today if you don’t have a job or 2 and some people even 3 you can’t live. Everything is so expensive now a days . Even health if you don’t have money your health is at Risk to 

1. The statistic which struck me most was that “the top 1 percent own between 40 and 50 percent of the nation’s total wealth (stocks, bonds, investment funds, land, natural resources, business assets, and so on), more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent.”
2. Implications of living in a society with such a massive economic gap are not hard to come by. Health care and big pharmaceutical companies are extremely classist. The food industry wants poor people to get diabetes. The rich control insulin prices so the food industry and big pharma are both guilty of this. Tech companies have capitalized and monetized our digital lives to the extreme. Luxury products from companies like Apple and Nike are seen as important if not crucial for self-image, even when they’re ripping us off. There are countless examples of this, and often, like the relationship between insulin and fast food, they are connected by wealth and capital. 

Veronica Gonzalez

POL 100 (0504) – Intro. to American Govt. – Fall 2022

Discussion Board 5.3

Q1. The statistic on wealth inequality in the US that made the biggest impression on me was the fact that “The level of inequality in the United States is higher than in any other industrialized nation, and it continues to grow (pg. 30)”. For me, to live in a country such as the U.S., that has so many resources, social programs, laws that regulate unfair labor practices, unions that fight for wages and benefits for the worker and that as a nation, we’ve progressed and come so far, to still be deficient  in this area with regards to class and have the majority of our citizens not earning above-subsistence level wages and not being paid their true worth for their labor is an injustice.   

Q2. Some of the implications in living in a society that has such huge wealth inequalities are: 1) Extreme control over every aspect of the production and services that are the basic needs/necessities that the public needs to live i.e. technology, food, shelter, wages. 2) Destruction of natural resources i.e. environment, to make a profit from the products that are produced. 3) Control over how jobs are given and taken away to the point where they can leave communities in dire straits economically, i.e. moving jobs overseas where the wage for the worker is far less than what they pay workers in the U.S. Finally, the capitalist system that we live in puts more value on profit than on the individuals that labor to produce those profits and by doing so they contribute to the endless cycle of “the poor even poorer and the rich even richer”. 

The economic disproportion between the wealthy class and the worker class in the U.S. aides in contributing to social problems such as poverty, food instability, depression, suicide, homelessness and crime among other conditions because the wages earned by the worker all go to supply the basic needs/necessities, if that, and does not not provide for them to make investments that can increase their income level thereby improving their class level. Yes these conditions do exist in our society today whereby we have individuals who work 2 or more jobs and work overtime just to meet their basic needs/necessities and at least have some extra income to use on other things besides basic needs/necessities.

The statistic on wealth inequality in the US that made the biggest impression on me was “Without surplus value the capitalists could not have come into being, nor could they survive, so that is always in their interests. to seek to increase it either by playing on relative or absolute surplus value, or by some combination of the two”. Wealth inequality has increased I feel over the years and many are putting funds into investments and stocks.

Some implications of living in a society that has such huge wealth inequalities are lower average education levels as many only graduate high school to then begin to put funds into investments and stocks and profits. I do see this dynamic being played out in our everyday life in our society as many want to own designer items and the newest technology. Not everyone can afford these materalistic items however, as long as everyone sees they have some type of wealth, then they enjoy it. The dynamic of wealth now of days did go downhill.

1. The biggest statistic would be “putting their money to work”. It made the biggest impression on me because that’s just how we are viewed to them, not as people but as numbers. On how good we can get a job done and how much money we can either make them while not truly caring about ourselves or how much money we are making. The truth of the matter is their wealth makes them both greedy and inhumane.
2. Living in a society with huge wealth inequalities is exactly where we are now. When you see the homeless person in the train station trying to get some sleep on the nearest bench. To the person who can’t afford a car to drive into work so has to take public transportation. Also, the person who can’t make ends meet so has to work two jobs just to make near the right amount to get by on expenses.

1. The top 1 percent own between 40 and 50 percent of the nation’s total wealth. This statistic on wealth inequality in the US had the biggest impression on me because this means that the other 99% of Americans only have about 50% of the nation’s wealth. This gap is just too high, I think it’s unfair the fact that 50% of the country’s wealth belongs to the only top 1%. And according to the reading to be in the top 1%, you must make about $350,000, so the other earners make less than $350,000. The majority of Americans fall under the working class, and this just shows how people are being used by these capitalists to make a profit.

2. Some of the implications of living in a society like this is that it can lead to over concentration of power in one social class, poverty, and homelessness. I do see this dynamic played out in our everyday lives, let’s take the how wealth inequality affects the healthcare as an example. These days it seems healthcare is only affordable to the rich member in the society. Although a lot of Americans are insured, the coverage of Insurance still depends on your income, and since the premiums are rising, the average/low-income citizens can’t afford those premium coverages, so, they face more health hardship than the rich population who can afford it. This can be linked to why the low-income citizens tend to live sicker because they are more likely to forsake preventive care since they can’t afford it. It seems healthcare in our society is now designed to put profits, and not the people first just like the capitalist.

1 . Which statistic on wealth inequality in the US (discussed on p. 29) made the biggest impression on you? Explain why?

While corporations are often called “ producers ,” the truth is they produce nothing . They are organizational devices for the exploitation of labor and accumulation of capital . The real producers are those who apply their brawn , brains , and talents to the creation of goods and services . This made the biggest impression on me because instead of corporations using actual talent and brains as producers to produce , they choose devices for exploiting labor which isn’t fair nor right .

2 . What could be some of the implications of living in a society that has such huge wealth inequalities? Do you see this dynamic getting played out in everyday life in our society? How so? Example?

This dynamic is truly overplayed in our society right now . A perfect example is Public Health , in our society wealth plays a good amount in our society . The more wealthy you are , the more you are likely to have a better chance at having better public health but when you are less wealthy , you most likely have a lower chance of getting that perfect public health you want .