The rich and the wealthy, part 1

I decided to break this topic into two parts because the problem of concentration of wealth in the United States I now realize is a two-headed monster. This first part deals with the less-recognized type of wealth.  Part two will get into the really juicy stuff.

Too many people confuse rich people with being wealthy people, and vice versa.  RICH means that you have alot of money.  WEALTH means that you CONTROL the means by which money can be made.  A person can make himself rich in one of the following ways:

1. Inherit alot of money
2. Win alot of money
3. Receive a high income for having a VERY rare talent that is in high demand (i.e., athlete in a major sport, an entertainer, and yes, even a CEO of a large corporation)
4. sell your valuables for alot of money

A person becomes wealthy by CONTROLING the means by which money can be made.  Money lasts until you spend it.  Wealth is permanant, it can generate money, but more than it also transcends money.  Wealth always has value.  A person can become wealthy in the following ways:

1. inherit wealth
2. use money to invest in items of wealth (land, stocks/business).  Oprah Winfrey at one time was a highly paid talk show host.  But one day she decided to use her money to buy the show's production company.  Her company, Harpo Productions, is what enabled Oprah to transform herself from being rich, into being wealthy.
3. Own land.  Own as in you don't have a mortgage note.  Even a "poor" farmer has wealth if he owns the land.  He can at least feed himself, and the seed from the crop enables next year's crop to be planted.  Hopefully he can sell some of his crop.  And if the land has gold or crude oil under it, that's all the better. 
4. have the majority of -- or a monopoly of -- something which dominates our way of life.  Examples are water, land, energy, ... and knowledge.  Knowledge is Power.

Thru the middle of the 20th century, the control of media -- newspapers, radio, television -- in the United States was spread out over many dozens of owners.  In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. By about 1992, fewer than two dozen corporations owned and operated 90% of the mass media -- controlling almost all of America's newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. By the beginning of the 21st century, the number had fallen to six. The graph is not my idea, but comes from http://www.corporations.org/media/.

Six corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, Viacom (formerly CBS) , and General Electric's NBC -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S.  You can do your own search, but a good place to start is at Facts on Media in America. Your knowledge base, your values, your thought processes, your sense of fair and unfair, American and un-American, is generally dictated to you by this small group of large corporations.  Now, please understand, the media has ALWAYS been in a position to shape and create public opinion.  But when there were hundreds of different owners, influence was local or regional, at worst.  Today, the national thinking can be influenced by a handful of people. 

There were once 20 daily newspapers in New York city, by 1940 there were eight, and since 1990 and in that year 25 cities in the United States with a population of more than 100,000 found themselves with only one daily newspaper. Moreover, increasing numbers of the newspapers that survived were owned not by local citizens but by large national newspaper chains. (Source: History of Newspapers).

To support increased military spending at the expense of the public it is charged to protect, it is often argued, "what price freedom?" Because your freedom -- including freedom of speech, and by extension, freedom of thought -- has no price.  So, to be able to control how people think is priceless. It's an influence that transcends money.  Those people have incredible wealth.

It's not duck season, or rabbit season, it's election season....

Looney tune politicians are doing their thing, saying just about anything to get elected, or at least to stop the "other guy" from getting elected.  Mainly, that means trying their best to scare you into voting  for them.  The tactics are typically a combination of slogans, catch-phrases, sound-bites, name-calling, race-baiting, fear-mongering.... anything EXCEPT the issues that the general public really cares about!

The U.S. Census Bureau reported that 44 million American citizens -- about 1 in 7 American citizens -- are below the official poverty line.  The official definition for poverty in 2010 is, for a single adult, $10,830 per year, before any taxes or anything else is withheld.  Enough to buy ONE prime box seat at Yankee stadium.  Now, if you divide that by 52 weeks, and then divide that by 40 hours per week, that single person makes less than $5.21 per hour.  For a family of four, that annual income skyrockets to $22,050, or $10.60 per hour.  Compare this to the salary of U.S. Senators and Congressmen is about $174,000 per year... and most of them are millionaires anyway (Salary of congress) .

There are millionaires and perhaps billionaires who pay LESS in taxes than a person below the poverty line earns in a year.  How-some-millionaires-can-owe-no-taxes

It is interesting to note how little those running for political office on ANY level are giving this serious discussion as an issue. Sure, there is talk about "taking America back" or "Stop those tax n spend folk in DC" or "Let's not go back to the Bush days"... slogans and buzz words and sound bites are part of the game, but if you it's all form and no substance.

• Same-sex marriages (or civil unions) do not put food on your table, or take it off.
• A mosque near "ground zero" is not going to get your job outsourced
• The faith of our the President (and Ronald Reagan NEVER went to ANY church while President) will not affect your ability buy a home, or keep your home
• Abortion rights, or the removal of those rights, will not clean up oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, nor prevent toxic chemicals from seeping into our groundwater
• Guarding our borders from illegal immigration will not stop businesses from hiring illegal immigrants so that those businesses can make more money

Why? Because millionaire politicians and wannabe millionaire politicians simply don't care about the bottom 95% of American citizens, let alone those in poverty. They live on a different plane of existance, just as you and I are on a different plane of existance from the cockroach. People like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, and Nancy Pelosi, all have two things in common:  One, they are millionaires many times over; and Two, they really have no concept of what most Americans have to do to survive from one day to the next.  To people like this, only the polls and media ratings and book sales matter...  and their ability to manipulate YOUR thought process.

As long as we fall for the slogans and catch-phrases, the fundamental concerns of the general public will never be addressed.

Introduction

The name of this blog is “It’s not about the money” for two reasons. First, it’s a funny and hypocritical phrase used by people who have a high salary and want a higher salary, but don’t want to look greedy. Big-time professional athletes use this phrase around contract renewal time. When they say “it’s not about the money,” that is code for “it’s all about the money.” Second, “it’s not about the money” is my central thesis explaining why what is happening to America. I’ll lay that all out over the next 5 or so blog posts.



I can safely say that in almost all respects, I am a typical citizen of the United States of America. Now, in a nation of over 300 million people, “typical” can cover a wide range of things. What I mean by typical is that I was born and raised here, graduated college and grad school, have been employed almost continuously since Reagan was President, married to only one wife for almost as long. I never served in the armed forces, never been arrested, never declared bankruptcy, never been debt-free as an adult, and never had a six-figure salary.


I’m not a politician, not an economist, not a whiner, not a know-it-all, but was not born yesterday either. I am a Christian, I am really imperfect, I believe in the original Golden Rule (treat others the way you would want to be treated) and appalled by the modern Golden Rule (he who has the gold makes the rules)… I can be funny at unexpected times, and I believe this country still has a chance to fulfill its potential.


But I started this blog because I am concerned that the window of opportunity for this nation to fulfill its potential is not just closing, but is being closed. I hope I can wake up enough people in this country to see what’s going on before it’s too late.