Here’s a cheery statistic that you may have missed: The wealthiest 1 percent now control 39 percent of the world’s wealth, and their share is likely to grow in the coming years.
What this means is that while you were digging out from the Great Recession — or are still digging out — multimillionaires coasted through just fine. And the gap between the uber-wealthy and the rest of us is the widest it has been in about a half century.
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A year ago, I wrote about how the Great Recession hit Latinos hard. At the time, I was hopeful that the worst was behind us. Perhaps that was my natural Hispanic tendency to be optimistic.
After all, Latinos “are worse off, but they are still more positive about where the country is going” compared to most Americans. In particular, “Latino small-business owners are among the fastest growing and most upbeat [groups] in the nation,” and they “worry less about job security and are more positive and humble.”
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So the Baby Boomers, as they are wont to do, are ready to take the money and run. Apparently, many older entrepreneurs will soon sell off their business and retire.
Well, we shouldn’t worry. After all, entrepreneurialism is a cornerstone of the fabled American Dream, and small businesses drive the economy. So I’m sure some young, smart, hardworking go-getters will keep the new ideas coming…unless of course, we’ve decimated education, promoted ignorance, and ravaged the social safety net to the point that we are unleashing a generation ill-equipped to tap into their own creativity.
OK, now I’m worried.
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I used to write for a website whose target audience was upscale Hispanic men. My job was to find the hippest, most happenin’, muy caliente places and products.
Of course, I soon grew weary of writing for guys who think $5,000 stereo speakers are their god-given right. But I also got tired of explaining the gig to people who asked, “Just how many rich Latino guys can there be?”
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Due to unusual circumstances that I won’t even get into, I found myself at a ritzy event, surrounded by wealthy individuals. I happened to be standing near the door, and I saw members of the one percent walk in.
For the most part, they were polite and just like you and me. However, the exceptions were numerous enough to notice.
Depending on whom you ask, the housing crisis is over, still going on, or entering a new and far more sinister phase.
Regardless of what happens to the housing market in the near future, we Latinos are doing our part to bolster this crucial component of the U.S. economy. In fact, Hispanics “are thriving during a record low housing market. In the past decade Latino homeownership has risen 2%.”
“There’s class warfare, alright. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war. And we’re winning.”
—Warren Buffett
Eat the rich!
—Aerosmith
In Manlio’s Argueta’s gripping novel, One Day of Life, soldiers of a repressive Central American government beat and abuse poor villagers. The peasants’ crime, as one militaristic thug puts it, is that “they don’t love the rich.”
It’s a rather harsh reaction to expressing displeasure with the ruling class. We haven’t come to that in the United States, at least not yet.
Still, the concept of class warfare, invoked primarily by right-wing politicians, holds that middle-class and poor people are simply jealous of rich individuals, or that they are being riled up to hate the wealthy.
Well, that was close.
A couple of years ago, it looked like the United States was in real economic trouble. But now everything is great… yeah, just great… yup.
As of right now, America still has a functioning economy. We’re not sure if we can pay all our bills, of course, and maybe China will just take ownership soon and have a fire sale on things we never use, like national parks and the state of North Dakota.
But for now, we’re still standing. That fact means different things to different people, however.
For example, the gap between Hispanics and prosperity has rarely been so vast.
