View this short video on Wealth Distribution in America. But first, take a guess at what percentages are held by the top 10%, the top 1%, and the top 1/10th of 1%. Then view the video and see how close you came to the reality. Join the conversation on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peace-House-Ashland-Oregon/235510203165748 to give us your response.
Transcript below (some of the auto transcription will have misinterpreted words, but, you can get an idea of key points in the video to go to them by the timeline).
0:00
there’s a chart I saw recently that i can’t get out of my head
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a harvard business professor an economist asked more than five thousand
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americans
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how they thought wealth was distributed in the united states
0:12
this is what they said they thought it was dividing the country into five
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groups of the top
0:17
bottom and middle three twenty percent
0:20
they asked people
0:21
how they thought the wealth in this country was divided
0:24
they ask them what they thought was the ideal distribution
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and ninety two percent
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that’s at least nine out of ten of them
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said it should be more like this
0:34
in other words more equitable than they think it is now that practiced telling
0:38
admittedly the notion that most americans know that the system is
0:42
already skewed unfairly
0:44
to what’s most interesting to me
0:46
is the reality compared to our perception
0:49
the ideal is is far removed from our perception of reality as the actual
0:54
distribution is from what we think exists in this country
0:59
ignore the ideal for a moment
1:01
cheers really think it is again
1:04
and hear is the actual distribution
1:07
shockingly ski
1:09
not only to the bottom twenty percent and the next twenty percent the bottom
1:13
forty percent of americans
1:15
barely have any of the wealth
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i mean it’s hard to even see them on the chart
1:20
but the top one percent
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has more of the country’s wealth
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then nine out of ten americans believe the entire top twenty percent should
1:29
have
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mind-blowing
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but let’s look at it another way because my finest right kind of difficult to
1:35
wrap my head around
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instead let’s reduce the three hundred eleven million americans to
1:40
just a representative
1:42
one hundred people
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make it simple
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here they are
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teachers coaches
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firefighters construction workers
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in juniors doctors lawyers some investment bankers to see uh… what may
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be a celebrity
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ballots lima according to their well
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poorest people on the left
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wealthiest on the right
2:00
justice steady roadblocks based on their network
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what color code them like we did before based on which twenty percent quintile
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they fall into
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now let’s reduce the total wealth of the united states which was roughly fifty
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four trillion dollars in two thousand nine
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to this symbolic pile of cash
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list sisters among our one hundred s wells pure socialism all the wealth of
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the country distributed equally
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we all know that won’t work
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uh…
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so
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here is that i feel master point about something like this kerr this is a tibet
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we’ve got some incentive as the wealthiest folks are now about ten to
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twenty times better off
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and the poorest americans
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but hey even the poor folks aren’t actually poor since the poverty line to
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state almost entirely off the chart we have a super helping middle-class with a
3:01
smooth transition into wealth and yes
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republicans and democrats alike chose this curve
3:07
nine out of ten people ninety percent
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said this was a nice ideal distribution of america’s wealth
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but let’s move on
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this is what people think america’s wealth distribution actually looks like
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thought as equitable clearly
3:23
but for me
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even s still looks pretty great
3:27
yes the poorest twenty to thirty percent are starting to suffer quite a lot
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compared to the ideal
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in the middle class the certainly struggling more than they were
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while the rich in wealthier making roughly a hundred times that of the
3:40
poorest americans
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in about ten times that of the still healthy middle class
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sadly this isn’t even close to the reality
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here is the actual distribution of wealth in america
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the poorest americans don’t even register
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they’re down to pocket change
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and the middle class is barely distinguishable from the poor
4:03
in fact even the rich between the top ten and twenty percent how are worse off
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all the talk in person or better off and how much better off
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so much better off at the top two two five percent are actually off the chart
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this scale
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and the top of one percent
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this guy
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what his stack of money stretches ten times higher than we can show
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dishes stack of cash respect all by itself
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this is the top one percent we’ve been hearing so much about
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so much green in his pocket that i have to give him a whole new column of his
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own
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because he won’t fit on my chart
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one percent of america has
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forty percent of all the nations well
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the bottom eighty percent
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eight out of every ten people or eighty out of these hundred
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only has seven percent between them and this as only gotten worse in the last
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twenty to thirty years
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while the richest one percent
5:01
take home almost a quarter the national income today
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in nineteen seventy-six they took home only nine percent
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meaning their share of income is nearly triple in the last thirty years
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the top one percent owned half the country stocks bonds and mutual funds
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the bottom fifty percent of americans only half a percent these investments
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which means
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they aren’t investing
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they’re just scraping by
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i’m sure many of these wealthy people that worked very hard in germany do you
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really believe that the c_e_o_ was working three hundred eighteen times
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harder his average employees not his lowest paid employees not the janitor
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but the average burgers company the average worker needs to work more than a
5:47
month
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to her and what the c_e_o_ makes in one
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we certainly don’t have to go all the way to socialism
5:54
to find something that is fair or hard working americans we don’t even have to
5:59
achieve what most of us consider might be ideal
6:02
all we need to do is wake up
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and reliance that the reality in this country that’s not it all
6:09
what we think it is
