Greatest income disparity in the world

[FZR1KG]

A place called Lake Providence in Louisiana.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/29/opinion/s ... index.html

Everything that this place has right now is where the US seems to be heading.
The income disparity, the poverty, the crime rates, the social dynamic and that quality I've been harping on about where the rich receive more government support than the poor yet complain that the poor are receiving support.

If you go half way down that link there is a graph of the annual subsidies per recipient.

Forty-five percent of the parish's residents receive food stamps, or SNAP benefits. The average payout is $1,492 per person per year.
This is a top gripe of the northsiders.

What you don't hear discussed as much is that they get help, too.

The average farmer who gets a commodity subsidy in the parish received $20,554 in 2010, according to the group. The most highly subsidized farmer that year in East Carroll Parish got more than $655,000 from that one subsidy program.
Look at that number again.
$655,000.

This issue keeps popping up over and over again. Subsidizing the wealthy so they can run their business and make more profit for themselves is considered good business.
Giving people food stamps so they don't starve, now that is evil.

This makes NO sense.
If one considers just the government breaks that the wealthy get vs the poor, the wealthy are the new poor.
They get the majority of charity. Just don't call it charity, that's offensive. Call it subsidies, tax breaks or anything else. Just not what it really is, charity.

[SciFi Chick]

And what is so goddamn frustrating is that no matter how much you speak out about this, nothing is going to change. So much for the "revolution" of the Internet. The only thing that will change this is the same thing that has always brought change - violent revolution. And the sad part is that it will just restart the same motherfucking cycle.

[FZR1KG]

For the same reasons that already exist in that parish, the poor are so used to it that its considered normal and the rich think that they are all self made thus the only explanation for the wealth disparity is that the poor are lazy good for nothings.
It's the same attitude here in this little part of the USA.
Even the poor (who think they are middle class) look down on the very poor.
Everyone looks down at the people who earn less than them like they are lepers who deserve it because that's the way God wants it and it makes me sick.
The reverse is also true. Everyone looks up at those who earn more and want to protect their status because some day, they might be there and they don't want someone below them taking what they earned as self made men.

[Swift]

And what is so goddamn frustrating is that no matter how much you speak out about this, nothing is going to change. So much for the "revolution" of the Internet. The only thing that will change this is the same thing that has always brought change - violent revolution. And the sad part is that it will just restart the same motherfucking cycle.

That's my take on it. I suspect it will get much worse before it gets better; the US seems to be turning into China faster than China is turning into the US.

Either the disparity will get so bad that there will be a revolution; or eventually the economies like China and Brazil will rise enough, with strong middle classes, that the middle class will have a chance again in the US (the middle class jobs won't be exported to the developing economies). I'm uncertain which of those will happen first; I don't suspect it will be in my lifetime.

[Rommie]

I ain't an expert in the Deep South, but a helluva lot of it sounds in the article like stuff left over from the Antebellum days (ie black slaves turn to sharecroppers turn to whatever they're called now, and it's economically advantageous for whites to keep the system that way).

I also think farm subsidies are the most fucking stupid thing imaginable and have maintained that opinion ever since I first heard about them.

[OldCM]

All of you are so correct on this problem. I don't think anybody in elected office will ever overcome it, since most of them are part of the problem.

[SciFiFisher]

Farm subsidies actually started as a way to allow family farms stay in the family. They were intended to provide needed assistance to farmers so they would keep producing food. Then came the corporate farms. Of course, they shouldn't be excluded from the subsidy programs. That wouldn't be fair.

I am betting that the farmer who got $655,000 in subsidies is actually a corporate farm owned by a large company. The "farmer" is probably just a farm manager.

[Swift]

All of you are so correct on this problem. I don't think anybody in elected office will ever overcome it, since most of them are part of the problem.

There was an article about that exactly this past Sunday in the Cleveland Plain Dealer - millionaires are now a majority in Congress.

LINK

For the first time in history, more than half the members of Congress are millionaires, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. The nonpartisan center reviewed lawmakers' assets and liabilities and determined that at least 268 of the current 534 members of Congress have an average net worth of $1 million or more.

King of the hill: Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who grew up in Cleveland Heights and built a fortune through car alarms and electronics. At the very least, he's worth $330.3 million, according to the center. But he could be worth as much as $597.85 million. The center estimates his average net worth is $464 million.

Next up is Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, worth as much as $418.7 million or with an average net worth of $257 million.

That's based on a review of the lawmakers' 2012 financial disclosure filings and related information. Congress members, most of whom earn $174,000 a year for their official duties, list assets, incomes and liabilities in ranges rather than using exact dollar figures, and they need not list their homes. This means the public often can only see a range of a Congress member's worth. Furthermore, their spouses do not need to list an upper range for some categories of extremely large assets.

[Rommie]

Farm subsidies actually started as a way to allow family farms stay in the family. They were intended to provide needed assistance to farmers so they would keep producing food. Then came the corporate farms. Of course, they shouldn't be excluded from the subsidy programs. That wouldn't be fair.

I am betting that the farmer who got $655,000 in subsidies is actually a corporate farm owned by a large company. The "farmer" is probably just a farm manager.

Interesting thing about this though is I don't think its original intention really works like that anyway. I have friends in both Pennsylvania and Ohio who inherited family farms- the PA ones basically get checks to not farm, which they weren't planning to do anyway, but the Ohio ones of similar size etc don't because that's a farming state. So those farms are a lot harder to keep in the family- it's really weird, messed up stuff.

Of course I imagine the farm bill is never going away either because so many states and districts get money from it, but it always pisses me off when we talk about government waste but still allow this stuff through- it really is one of the more obvious forms of waste out there.