Gap between the Rich and the Poor : Self Preservation or Greed?

Wherever you go in the world there are in a sense those that have made it and those that will never do. Many words describe those who are very financially well off such as rich, affluent, aristocrat, elite while words such as poor, lower class and needy describe those that have not. Many in other countries find that it is harder to make something of themselves in their countries and that the barriers to success are greater; therefore, they migrate to more developed nations such as the United States to take a chance on a better life. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.

Forbes magazine releases a list of the World's richest people and top Billionaires whose combined net worth surpasses the GDP of many nations. For those who were not Economics majors in college, GDP is the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period which is sometimes used as an indicator of a country's standard of living. What this means is that these individuals can in a sense buy almost any country if they combined their wealth. The sway and power which they hold to command attention and get policies implemented in favor of their businesses is tremendous. From the lobbying power to the political contributions, it is no surprise why some of these companies have such free run of  the government. This year alone 2011, Forbes did some research on just how many 'Billionaires' there were in the world. What it found was that there was a record 946 billionaires with 178 newcomers. The combined net worth of these billionaires also climbed by $900 billion to $3.5 trillion which roughly  equates to $3.6 billion per billionaire. Bill Gates still retained the position of number one with roughly $56 billion. Second place is the man the investment world and all minimalists know, Warren Buffet with about $52 billion. Third place is Mexico's own Carlos Slim Helu with $49billion. 

These three individuals alone are worth about $150 billion dollars, more than enough to fund programs to improve public school education, aid in creating more jobs, minimize poverty and definitely enough to take care of hunger, fund research on diseases and solve many other problems plaguing their nations. Yes, Bill & Melinda Gates donate countless amounts of dollars to charity and so does Warren Buffet, but point is, can they do more and what are others in their position doing. Is it fair for many in the world to be starving because they barely have access to bare necessities needed to survive while some elite in their country is buying $2million dollar Bugatti Veyron's with a car collection  in the hundreds? (An example being Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of the Saudi Royal Family) Some have argued that a few of these well-to-do individuals worked from scratch to become who they are. They put in long hours, hard work and sweat to build their corporations to become the success it is today. Also that these individuals 'ARE' assisting the working class in their respective nations because  of the jobs they are creating and the opportunities. But my question is, why is it the average American makes about $35,000 a year while the average Chief Executive officer rakes in an amount in the millions........... it doesn't seem fair. 

I recently watched a documentary titled 'The One Percent' by Jamie Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune which talks about the growing wealth gap between America's elite and the citizenry. It shed a lot light for me and through its interview of many famous people, some of which I was even surprised to see in the movie, I learned a lot. Some of the individuals interviewed were Nicole Buffet, adopted daughter of Warren Buffet's son Peter. Steve Forbes, Bill Gates Sr, former Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader, Chuck Collins, heir to the Oscar Meyer fortune and Milton Friedman 1976 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize. The movie talked about estate tax, income tax, and how if the current gap continues to grow as it is, family dynasties of the sort that was had in the late 19th century is what would result. One point made in Jamie's movie that I agree with is that, "If the rich pay less in taxes, the rest of the nation will have to pay more just to keep the basic programs we have running smoothly; Roads bridges, education, medicare, medicaid".

The movie is concluded with Jamie saying, "Self preservation has given rise to the growing wealth gap in America. And the bigger the gap gets the more removed wealthy people become from the world around them. But if you're always hiding from the problem, you're never going to find any solutions."