Society: National

Driven by the need to buy cheap goods on poverty wages, America's poorest aren't likely join in on a Wal-Mart boycott anytime soon according to this article. Quoted in the piece is one senior citizen, earning $8,000 dollars/year, who said of a $15,000/year job at Wal-Mart:

"Boy, now that is a lot of money. I could live with that." She closed with a plea to the readers: "I'm sure you all make a lot more than I. And I'm sure I speak for a lot of seniors and very-low-income people. We need this Wal-Mart."

And so the race to the bottom continues...

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney will join leaders representing tens of millions working Americans to counter President Bush's economic conference promoting his plan to privatize Social Security in a press conference Thursday, December 16 at 12:30pm at the National Press Club.

The event will be televised live on C-SPAN-1. Streaming video of the broacast can be seen at:

Real Video
Windows Media Player

Things are tough all over. On the heels of a report yesterday in the Wall Street Journal about how the super rich can't afford big enough yachts, comes this story of how the demand for food and shelter among the richest nation's poorest is up for the 20th straight year.

It was reported in the Wall Street Journal today that the wealth held by millionaires is $28.8 trillion, more than the annual gross domestic products (GDP) of the United States, Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom combined. For those not up on your economic terminology, if you were to take all the products and services these five countries produced last year, all of it would have been gobbled up by a relative handful of millionaires. It's yet another jaw dropping statistic of how extremely skewed the distribution of wealth has become.
But apparently life isn't so easy when you're super rich. The article reports a great deal on the rough time the rich are having keeping up with the Gates'. If you've got a one hundred foot yacht, you might as well be seen driving a Yugo. For yacht owners to "feel special," as the article puts it, you need at least a two hundred foot yacht.
I'm very glad I came across this article. I now have a good understanding of the immense social pressure the rich feel as they compete for material possessions. I can feel good that our tax breaks will help alleviate the painful psychological burden of mass acquisition they must all experience.