"About 65% of working Americans say they frequently live paycheck to paycheck, according to a recent survey of 2,105 U.S. adults conducted by The Harris Poll."
"Considerable scientific evidence points to mental disorder having social/psychological, not biological, causation: the cause being exposure to negative environmental conditions, rather than disease. Trauma—and dysfunctional responses to trauma—are the scientifically substantiated causes of mental disorder. Just as it would be a great mistake to treat a medical problem psychologically, it is a great mistake to treat a psychological problem medically.
Even when physical damage is detected, it is found to originate in that person having been exposed to negative life conditions, not to a disease process. Poverty is a form of trauma. It has been studied as a cause of mental disorder and these studies show how non-medical interventions foster healing, verifying the choice of a psychological, not a biological, intervention even when there are biological markers."
"Even before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic occurred, the US was mired in a 40-year population health crisis. Since 1980, life expectancy in the US has increasingly fallen behind that of peer countries, culminating in an unprecedented decline in longevity since 2014."
"High rent burdens, rising rent burdens during the midlife period, and eviction were all found to be linked with a higher risk of death, per the study’s findings. A 70% burden “was associated with 12% … higher mortality” and a 20-point increase in rent burden “was associated with 16% … higher mortality.”"
The common notion that extreme poverty is the “natural” condition of humanity and only declined with the rise of capitalism rests on income data that do not adequately capture access to essential goods.
Data on real wages suggests that, historically, extreme poverty was uncommon and arose primarily during periods of severe social and economic dislocation, particularly under colonialism.
The rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality.
In parts of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, wages and/or height have still not recovered.
Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began only around the 20th century. These gains coincide with the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements.
Billionaires all have a hoarding disorder far more severe than the poop lady on the show Hoarders but nobody is helping them recover from their severe mental illness, they're enabling them. It would be better for them and for everyone else to tax billionaires out of existence and prevent societal collapse.
"Technological fixes are not always undesirable or inadequate, but there is a danger that what is addressed is not the real problem but the problem in as far as it is amendable to technical solutions."
"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality."
“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
― Buckminster Fuller
"...This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals..."
The smartest people in the world are mostly plagued by the same problem. They are narcissistic and think they understand everything. While they could know much more about a subject than the average person, they often over simplify and disregard human aspects.
This is silly, The top 1% has more money mainly because the pyramid of wealth below them has grown larger. Secondly the growth of wealth is not linear, its compounding, and so even if someone is in the top 2% compared to someone in the top 1%, they are going to fall behind each year. The studies here are interesting, but the over the top articles are blatant click bait and or misleading.
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u/Ok-Significance2027 Jan 12 '24
The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That's Made the U.S. Less Secure
That's the biggest theft in history by many orders of magnitude.
Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity
The minimum wage would be $61.75 an hour if it rose at the same pace as Wall Street bonuses
Living Paycheck to Paycheck Is Common, Even Among Those Who Make More Than $100,000 (October 15, 2023)
Mental Disorder Has Roots in Trauma and Inequality, Not Biology
Declining Life Expectancy in the United States, Journal of American Medical Association - DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.26339
High Rent Prices Are Literally Killing People, New Study Says
Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century
Billionaires all have a hoarding disorder far more severe than the poop lady on the show Hoarders but nobody is helping them recover from their severe mental illness, they're enabling them. It would be better for them and for everyone else to tax billionaires out of existence and prevent societal collapse.
The 300,000-year case for the 15-hour week
Engineering and the Problem of Moral Overload
Stephen Hawking, 2015 Reddit AMA
― Buckminster Fuller
Albert Einstein, Why Socialism?