In US, Record Numbers are Plunged into Poverty

The Bush administration has created a very small segment of our population, the "hyper rich", which have left and leave, even the wealthier Americans, in the dust, and as for the Americans already struggling to put food on their plates…choking in a cloud of dust so thick one would have trouble seeing their own hand in front of their face.

Many Americans have no problem with this disparity because, in their eyes, the United States is a country where anyone can reach the level of the “hyper-rich” if one tries hard enough. What they don’t understand is that the more this gap between the rich and the poor widens, the harder it will be for the average American to move from one income group to another one. The wealth is concentrated within such a small group of individuals that it becomes almost impossible to penetrate unless one is born into it.

Not only does it slow down economic mobility, but it can transform our country from one of the most innovative countries in the world to one lagging far behind, to the point where we will no longer be able to compete in the world economy.

As some of the wealthiest Americans have said, including Warren E. Buffet, George Soros, and Ted Turner, “such a concentration of wealth can turn a meritocracy into and aristocracy and ultimately stifle economic growth by putting too much of the nation’s capital in the hands of inheritors rather than strivers and innovators.”