...you're seeing a horror show. You're seeing a retrenchment in terms of family income, you're seeing the abandonment of basic services, such as...functional public education. You're seeing the underclass hunted through an alleged war on dangerous drugs that is in fact merely a war on the poor and has turned us into the most incarcerative state in the history of mankind, in terms of the sheer numbers of people we've put in American prisons and the percentage of Americans we put into prisons. No other country on the face of the Earth jails people at the number and rate that we are. We have become something other than what we claim for the American dream and all because of our inability to basically share...

David Simon

#david simon #income equality #education #public school #war on drugs #underclass #incarceration #prisoners #prisons #poverty #american dream #culture #politics

thesmithian-blog

'...there is unsettling realization that the middle is losing economic ground while Silicon Valley execs babble on about “changing the world” for the better...'

...Income inequality is growing ever worse, and it is increasingly clear that one of the forces fueling this trend is the technological innovation flowing out of the Bay Area...The very fact that this boom is not a bubble, and will not suddenly vanish, means we can’t ignore it, or laugh it away. This is the new normal...A mature Internet economy is generating huge riches, and it is remaking the face of San Francisco and the larger Bay Area in the process.

more.

#income equality #technology #bay area #california #the internets #economy #san francisco #silicon valley #culture #middle class

thesmithian-blog

When it comes to economic gaps between whites and communities of color in the United States, income inequality tells part of the story. But let’s not forget about wealth. Wealth isn’t just money in the bank; its insurance against tough times, tuition to get a better education and a better job, savings to retire on and a springboard into the middle class. In short, wealth translates into opportunity...

Less than Equal: Racial Disparities in Wealth Accumulation, from the Urban Institute’s Opportunity and Ownership project

#economics #race #United States #income equality #wealth #banks #education #jobs #retirement #class #middle class