occupy wall street

it took a while to get large-scale media attention, but the "occupy wall street" movement has certainly made a recent impact in the minds of many people. While on a long bus ride in korea last week they had news playing on a tv. i couldnt understand the words, but they showed scenes of people in seoul and several other cities in many other countries showing support for the USA-based movement.

Here are four key points (and 4 accompanying charts here):

1. Unemployment is at the highest level since the Great Depression,

2. At the same time, corporate profits are at an all-time high (The top earners are capturing a higher share of the national income than they have anytime since the 1920s.),

3. Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low (After adjusting for inflation, average earnings haven't increased in 50 years),

4. Income and wealth inequality in the US economy is near an all-time high (CEO pay and corporate profits have skyrocketed in the past 20 years, "production worker" pay has risen 4%).

the thing that jumps out to me in the charts here, is just how rapidly the corporate profits rebounded after the economic crisis hit.

for a poignant cartoon summary written almost 20 years ago by the endlessly relevant artist bill watterson, click this image...

courtesy of gocomics.com

i dont like to write too much about politics here, but i wanted to share the calvin and hobbes cartoon and thought i'd set the scene. in my opinion, it's about damn time people got angry about these issues and organized to say so! now it's time for representative politicians to step up and start suggesting policies to help eradicate these gross inequalities.