Month: February 2011

+THE HUMAN RACE IS GROWING UP – WE CAN’T IGNORE OUR GROWING PAINS

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This series is a “for educational purposes only” presentation of information from the book, America’s Sacred Calling: Building a New Spiritual Reality (2010) by John Fitzgerald Medina.  Medina writes:

Moving Toward a Holistic View of Reality

“When one considers the egregious [conspicuous, flagrant] level of abuse, corruption, and exploitation prevalent in the world today, it becomes quite clear that it is impossible to build a well-functioning world order on the defective foundation of global capitalism.  As stated in the Baha’i publication, Century of Light, Western civilization has erected a capitalist-based global system that is “morally and intellectually bankrupt.” [page 135]  Fortunately, the Baha’i Faith is not alone in recognizing this.  Indeed, as detailed in my first book, Faith, Physics, and Psychology:  Rethinking Society and the Human Spirit, a diversity of movements from various fields of study (including economics, psychology, physics, religious studies, history, medicine, education, sociology, political science, and others) have started to challenge the underlying ideologies, theories, and philosophies of Western civilization.  Within this context, capitalism itself, the golden idol of many modern people, has come under intense scrutiny and criticism.

“The various movements that are challenging the Western paradigm are based on worldviews that are radically different from the Cartesian-Newtonian worldview.  Like the Baha’i perspective, these movements maintain that, before we can resolve the major social, economic, political, and environmental problems facing us, we must leave behind the false, materialistic, Cartesian-Newtonian view of reality.  Also, like the Baha’i Faith, such movements assert that we need to adopt a holistic view of reality that is capable of recognizing the oneness of humanity and the oneness of the cosmos and of integrating science and religion, as well as acknowledging the unity of mind, body, and spirit.  Along these lines, Theodore Roszak, a well-known advocate of the holistic paradigm, asserts,

“It is as [Ernst Friedrich] Schumacher [a Rhodes Scholar in economics, and a highly respected holistic advocate] tells us:  “When the available ‘spiritual space’ is not filled by some higher motivations, then it will necessarily be filled by something lower – by the small, mean, calculating attitude to life which is rationalized in the economic calculus.”  If that is so, then we need a nobler economics that is not afraid to discuss spirit and conscience, moral purpose and the meaning of life, an economics that aims to educate and elevate people, not merely to measure their low-grade behavior.”  [see:  Small is Beautiful:  Economics as if People Mattered, page 9.]

“In short, any global order that aspires to honor the exalted nature of the human soul must be able to integrate the spiritual and the sacred with the material and the secular.  This is something that the capitalist paradigm, almost by definition, cannot achieve.  Thus, it has planted the seeds of its own ultimate destruction because it is virtually incapable of truly edifying and inspiring the human soul – the real source of power for any sustainable economic system.  [bold type is mine]

“Since spiritual transformation and material transformation must go together, it is essential for individuals to remain cognizant of the economic, political, social, and environmental state of the world.  People of faith must also be directly engaged in helping to transform the world rather than retreating into comfortable “spiritual enclaves.”  Baha’u’llah states, “Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.”  [see:  Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, (2005) no 106.1]

“In essence, a faith without physical deeds is dead.  According to the Baha’i Faith, some of the noblest of all human beings are those who have been educated, trained, and spiritually inspired for a life of service to humanity.  Along these lines, ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s following statement regarding the importance of service is highly pertinent to the discussion in this chapter regarding the plight of many who are currently being held in the claws of tyranny and oppression:

“Without action nothing in the material world can be accomplished….  It is not through lip-service only that the elect of God have attained to holiness, but by patient lives of active service they have brought light into the world….  Therefore strive that your actions day by day may be beautiful prayers.  Turn towards God, and seek always to do that which is right and noble.  Enrich the poor, raise the fallen, comfort the sorrowful, bring healing to the sick, reassure the fearful, rescue the oppressed, bring hope to the hopeless, shelter the destitute!…  If we strive to do all this, then are we true Baha’is, but if we neglect it, we are not followers of the Light, and we have no right to the name.”  [see:  Paris Talks, (2006) no. 26.5]

“Related to the discussion above, the Baha’i teachings assert that humanity is involved in an evolutionary process that is inevitably moving humankind toward maturity and away from destructive ways of thinking and acting.  This, however, does not mean that individuals should sit idly by and just wait for the process to take its natural evolutionary course.  Indeed, this process seems to be an interactive, mutually reinforcing, synergistic progression – the more that individuals strive for spiritual transformation and the more that individuals strive to implement spiritual virtues and deeds in the material world, the grater the evolutionary shifts for the overall society.  Conversely, any positive shifts in the overall society help people to make further internal changes as individuals.

“Many holistic advocates believe that we are already beginning to experience a paradigm shift toward holism and away from the Cartesian-Newtonian worldview (and its capitalistic system).  Similar to the Baha’i perspective, such holistic advocates believe that humanity is presently undergoing an evolutionary jump toward holism as a result of major leaps in human spiritual consciousness.  Indeed, Baha’is and holistic advocates both believe that the paradigm shift toward a holistic view of reality is not coerced, but rather, it is a natural process of spiritual transformation that is moving humanity from its adolescent stage of development to its stage of maturity (the coming of age of humanity).  Along these lines, The Baha’i publication Century of Light states:

“And for a Baha’i the ultimate issues are spiritual.  The Cause [Baha’i Faith]is not a political party nor an ideology, much less an engine for political agitation against this or that social wrong.  The process of transformation it has set in motion advances by inducing a fundamental change of consciousness, and the challenge it poses to everyone who would serve it is to free oneself from attachment to inherited assumptions and preferences that are irreconcilable with the Will of God for humanity’s coming of age.  Paradoxically, even the distress caused by prevailing conditions that violate one’s conscience aids in this process of spiritual liberation.  In the final analysis, such disillusionment drives a Baha’i to confront a truth emphasized over and over again in the Writings of the Faith:  “He hath chosen out of the whole world the hearts of His servants and made them each a seat for the revelation of His glory.  Wherefore, sanctify them from every defilement, that the things for which they were created may be engraven upon them.”  [see:  Century of Light, page 136]

“Thus as agents of spiritual and material transformation we all have the responsibility to purify ourselves from “every defilement” and “to free” ourselves “from attachment to inherited assumptions and preferences that are irreconcilable with the Will of God for humanity’s coming of age.”  The sentiments expressed in the quote above bring us full circle to the concept of responsibility that we discussed at the beginning of this chapter – according to the Baha’i writings, the American Baha’is in particular have a “staggering responsibility” to cleanse themselves from the “faults, habits, and tendencies which they have inherited from their own nation” and then to help eradicate “such evil tendencies” from the lives of their fellow American citizens.  Indeed, the Baha’i writings emphasize that America will not manifest its exalted destiny until this “staggering responsibility” is fulfilled.  It is my hope that this chapter has made it plainly evident that, capitalism, a manifestation of the materialistic Cartesian-Newtonian worldview, is an “evil tendency” that must be acknowledged and properly redressed so that America can assume its exalted destiny as the nation that “will lead all nations spiritually” as prophesied by ‘Abdu’l-Baha.”  [see:  in Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith, (1965) page 35] (all of the above from pages 202-205 of Medina’s book)

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Recent related posts:

+HERE’S A TAKE ON THE RICH RICH RICH RICH AND THE POOR POOR POOR POOR

+FINDING MY COURAGE TO TAKE A LOOK AT ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICA’

+ONGOING TRAUMAS: AMERICA’S BIG MONEY PERPETRATORS

+WHERE THE BAD PEOPLE HIDE: ‘AMERICA FAR WORSE THAN A BULLY’

+CRITICISM NOT ALLOWED IN A BLACK-AND-WHITE WORLD

+MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS — ECONOMIC VAMPIRES WORLDWIDE

+CONTINUED HUMAN EVOLUTION: WE MUST LOSE THE BAD AND IMPROVE ON THE GOOD

+WHEN LITTLE MATTERS MOST — WE NEED A BETTER WORLD FOR OUR GLOBE’S CHILDREN

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+WHEN LITTLE MATTERS MOST — WE NEED A BETTER WORLD FOR OUR GLOBE’S CHILDREN

alchemynowLeave a comment

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In my ongoing mental travels to try to gain a workable perspective about why so many of our nation’s offspring are suffering such a lack of well-being – as are their families – I am gaining at least a little bit of clarity.  The ‘problem’ IS tied to the reality that poverty exists in our nation – and severe extremes of it exist around our globe with nearly one billion members of our human family starving to death.  Poverty hurts.  Yet also knowing that such vast amounts of our nation’s and our globe’s wealth is concentrated in the possession of so few (as my work on recent posts is describing) seems to make the whole global picture worse.

As I work to untangle my own thinking and feelings related to these topics, I wanted to mention a book that sadly I have yet to read!  Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, a Rhodes Scholar in economics and a highly respected holistic advocate, stated,

Simplicity and non-violence are obviously closely related. The optimal pattern of consumption, producing a high degree of human satisfaction by means of a relatively low rate of consumption, allows people to live without great pressure and strain and to fulfill the primary injunction of Buddhist teaching: ‘Cease to do evil; try to do good.‘

In his book, Small Is Beautiful:  Economics As If People Mattered, Schumacher directly approaches the reality that Western economics are causing damage and that within the Western capitalistic-materialist worldview no workable solution can ever be found to solve the globe’s major problems.  It will be necessary for our species to adapt on all levels to a sustainable holistic worldview and practice if we are going to survive.

On the website WorldInc is this description of Small Is Beautiful:  Economics As If People Mattered:

“One of the most fateful errors of our age is the belief that ‘the problem of production’ has been solved.” So begins this classic of commonsense economics, a book that The New Republic called “Enormously broad in scope, pithily weaving together threads from Galbraith and Gandhi, capitalism and Buddhism, science and psychology.”

E.F. Schumacher (1911-1977) was a Rhodes Scholar and respected economist who throughout his long career worked with the likes of J.M. Keynes and J.K. Galbraith. From 1950 to 1970 he served as Chief Economic Advisor to the British Coal Board — with over 800,000 employees, one of the largest organizations in the world.

An early proponent of the idea of “sustainable development,” he opposed neo-classical economics by declaring that single-minded concentration on output and technology was dehumanizing. Furthermore, he asserted that one’s workplace should be dignified and meaningful first, efficient second.

In 1955, while traveling in Burma, he first developed the principles of what he called “Buddhist economics,” based on the notion that good work was essential for proper human development and that “production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life.”

First published in 1973, Small Is Beautiful is a collection of essays that brought Schumacher’s ideas to a wider audience at a time when an energy crisis was shaking the world and people had begun to realize that petroleum and other natural resources are finite (that is, such resources should be treated as nonrenewable capital rather than as expendable income, to be exploited and used up without thought for the future). Widely translated into many languages, Small Is Beautiful was named among the 100 most influential books published since World War II by The Times Literary Supplement.

His work also dealt with various other emerging trends, such as the environmental movement and economic globalization. In his view, for a large organization to function properly, it must behave like a group of related smaller organizations. Schumacher’s attitude toward nature reflects his theories on business and the workplace:

Ever bigger machines, entailing ever bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom. Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful.”

To learn more about this forward-looking and prophetic thinker, visit:

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+CONTINUED HUMAN EVOLUTION: WE MUST LOSE THE BAD AND IMPROVE ON THE GOOD

alchemynow2 Comments

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This series is a “for educational purposes only” presentation of information from the book, America’s Sacred Calling: Building a New Spiritual Reality (2010) by John Fitzgerald Medina.  Medina writes:

Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic

“A few words should be said regarding the Baha’i idea of civilization.  Baha’u’llah wrote, “All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.  [Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, no. 104.2]”  Obviously, the civilization that is intended here is not the kind of civilization that was first conceived by Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, John Locke, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, and other Western intellectuals who promulgated an anti-spiritual mentality.  Indeed, in the following passage, Baha’u’llah uses the words “infernal engine” in reference to Western civilization:

“In all matters moderation is desirable.  If a thing is carried to excess, it will prove a source of evil.  Consider the civilization of the West, how it hath agitated and alarmed the peoples of the world.  An infernal engine hath been devised, and hath proved so cruel a weapon of destruction that its like none hath ever witnessed or heard.  The purging of such deeply rooted and overwhelming corruptions cannot be effected unless the peoples of the world unite in pursuit of one common aim and embrace one universal faith.”  [Tablets of Baha’u’llah, page 69]

“In relation to the quote above, it is significant to note that capitalism, if anything, actually encourages immoderation.  For instance, it encourages the ideas of unbridled competition, insatiable desires, unrestricted individualism, boundless accumulation of wealth, and absolute freedom (laissez-faire).  It also promotes the cynical assumption that self-interest and profit motivation are the primary forces between individuals in society.  This ultimately leads to self-indulgence and greed.

“Fortunately, some Christians have begun to recognize that, in order to maintain a biblical perspective, they must challenge and transcend, in thoughts and actions, the existing socioeconomic materialistic paradigm.  For instance, Ron Sider, a professor of theology, holistic ministry, and public policy at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, states,

“We need to ask, “Are we really biblical?”…  Cheap grace results when we reduce the gospel to forgiveness of sins only…when we embrace the individualism and materialism and relativism of our current culture….  [E]mbracing Jesus…means embracing [Him] as Lord as well as Savior….  [I]t means beginning to live as a part of his new community where everything is being transformed….  [T]he mission of the church is both to do evangelism and to do social ministry….  That means…a concern for justice for the poor.  It will mean concern for creation care [care for the environment], for human rights, and for peacemaking.”  [Ron Sider as cited by Stan Guthrie in “The Evangelical Scandal,” Christianity Today, April 13, 2005]

“In his recent book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience:  Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World?, Sider maintains that many Christians have conformed their thinking and actions to the prevailing un-biblical materialistic paradigm.  This, he asserts, has seriously compromised their worldview and has crippled their ability to transform the society around them based on the Word of Christ.  Indeed, Sider cites a plethora [excess, abundance] of studies, polls, and statistics showing that many Christians live very much like the general American population in terms of materialism, hedonism, racism, sexual immorality, and other traits.  For instance, he shows that, even though today’s American Christians are the wealthiest generation of Christians in world history, their charitable giving, as a percentage of income, has gone down.  Sider also asserts that, as a group, they do not take care of the poor.  He points out that, in particular, the tithing of Christian Evangelicals (the group most likely to attend church regularly) has gone down every year for several decades.  He argues that these negative conditions will persist so long as mammon (money) remains on the throne as the idol of worship.  [See:  Ron Sider, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience:  Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World?]

“It is also troubling to note that considerable numbers of Christians now subscribe to a point of view that merges their religious beliefs with a staunchly nationalistic, capitalistic ideology that often promotes and defends the American-dominated global economic order even at the expense of other nations and peoples.  Regarding this, S.R. Shearer, an Evangelical Christian who runs his own ministry, points out that it is truly disturbing and ironic that capitalist ideology enjoys a significant amount of support from Christian Americans.  He maintains that it is virtually impossible for Christians to justify the immorality of the American-dominated capitalist global order [he calls it the “American New World Order System”], especially in light of the following passages from the Bible:

Lay not up for yourselves measures upon the earth….  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven….  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also…  Matthew 6:19-21

[I]f thou wilt be perfect, go sell (all) that thou hast, and give it to the poor,…and come and follow me [Christ]. Matthew 19:21

No servant can serve two masters:  for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.  Ye cannot serve God and mammon [material wealth or possessions]. Luke 16:13

“Many Americans, including many religious believers, may believe that our cultural paradigm is fundamentally sound and that we can resolve our global problems simply by implementing an assortment of reforms, adjustments, and tweeks to the system here and there.  Such attempts to reform the system, however, without confronting the underlying destructive materialistic worldview are tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  Solutions to our global problems cannot be found within the same despiritualized system that created these problems.

“Based on information provided in this chapter [see links below to previous posts], it should be evident that some of the people who have been most negatively impacted by the immoderation of Western civilization have been the indigenous peoples of the Americas.  Indeed, countless indigenous cultures have been decimated by the relentless wayward march of the West.  This destructive process has continued even into modern times.  For instance, the genocide against the Guatemalan Mayan Indians and the “water wars” against the Indian people of Bolivia (both of these situations were described earlier) are good examples of this destructive process.

“It is important to note that man Latin American nations have very large populations of American Indians, and in fact, in some countries, Indians make up the majority of the population.  Unfortunately, Indians throughout Latin America continue to face deeply ingrained racism on the part of Whites (people of European descent) who still wield disproportionate levels of economic, political, and social power.

“In light of the information above, it is truly fascinating that, as noted earlier, ‘Abdu’l-Baha prophesied that if the Indians become “educated and guided” in the teachings of Baha’u’llah, “there can be no doubt that they will become so illumined as to enlighten the whole world.”  [see:  ‘Abdu’l-Baha, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith, (1965) page 16]  Considering the fact that the indigenous people of the Americas are now some of the most impoverished and marginalized peoples in the world, this prophetic passage seems truly remarkable.  This may be a case of God using the downtrodden and dispossessed to show the true power of spirituality to positively transform the material world.

“In 1977, a group of Indian people presented three papers to some of the nongovernmental organizations of the United Nations located in Geneva, Switzerland.  In these documents, the American Indian authors raised “a call for a consciousness of the Sacred Web of Life in the Universe.”  The passage below is an excerpt from one of these documents.  Please note the similarity between the sentiments expressed by Baha’u’llah in the quote above and the sentiments expressed by the indigenous authors of the statement below:

“Today the species of Man is facing a question of the very survival of the species.  The way of life known as Western Civilization is on a death path on which their own culture has no viable answers.  When faced with the reality of their own destructiveness, they can only go forward into areas of more efficient destruction.  The appearance of Plutonium [nuclear technology] on this planet is the clearest of signals that our species is in trouble.  It is a signal which most Westerners have chosen to ignore….  The air is foul, the waters poisoned, the trees are dying, the animals are disappearing.  We think even the systems of weather are changing.  Our ancient teachings warned us that if Man interfered with the Natural Laws, these things would come to be.  When the last of the Natural Way of Life [traditional Native way of life] is gone, all hope for human survival will be gone with it.  And our Way of Life is fast disappearing, a victim of the destructive processes….  Our essential message to the world is a basic call to consciousness.  The destruction of the Native cultures and people is the same process which has destroyed and is destroying life on this planet.  The technologies and social systems which have destroyed the animal and the plant life are also destroying the Native people.  And that process is Western Civilization which old the promise of unimaginable future suffering and destruction.  Spiritualism is the highest form of…consciousness.  And we, the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere, are among the world’s surviving proprietors of that kind of consciousness.  We are here to impart that message.”  [see:  Akwesasne Notes, ed., Basic Call to Consciousness (1978), pages 77-78]

“True solutions will have to be based upon perspectives, ideas, values, and assumptions that lie outside the confines of the prevailing Western view of reality.  In this regard, Baha’is believe that the teachings of Baha’u’llah are intended to create an entirely new peaceful, just, and unified global order that will wipe away, at their very root, the maladies of the current age.  The following passage from the Baha’i writings eloquently enunciates this concept of renewal:

“The call of Baha’u’llah is primarily directed against all forms of provincialism, all insularities and prejudices.  If long-cherished ideals and time-honored institutions, if certain social assumptions and religious formulae have ceased to promote the welfare of the generality of mankind, if they no longer minister to the needs of a continually evolving humanity, let them be swept away and relegated to the limbo of obsolescent and forgotten doctrines.  Why should these, in a world subject to the immutable law of change and decay, be exempt from the deterioration that must needs overtake every human institution?  For legal standards, political and economic theories are solely designed to safeguard the interests of humanity as a whole, and not humanity to be crucified for the preservation of the integrity of any particular law or doctrine.”  [see:  Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha’u’llah, (1991) page 42]  (above from Medina’s book, pages 196-202)

Next post:  Moving Toward a Holistic View of Reality

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Recent related posts:

+HERE’S A TAKE ON THE RICH RICH RICH RICH AND THE POOR POOR POOR POOR

+FINDING MY COURAGE TO TAKE A LOOK AT ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICA’

+ONGOING TRAUMAS: AMERICA’S BIG MONEY PERPETRATORS

+WHERE THE BAD PEOPLE HIDE: ‘AMERICA FAR WORSE THAN A BULLY’

+CRITICISM NOT ALLOWED IN A BLACK-AND-WHITE WORLD

+MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS — ECONOMIC VAMPIRES WORLDWIDE

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+NEW YORK’S ‘HEALTHY FAMILIES’ PROGRAM — GREAT FINDINGS!

alchemynowLeave a comment

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I would like to mention a commendable program to assist ‘at risk’ children in New York as described on the Prevent Child Abuse New York Blog.  According to their post on January 26, 2011

New Study Finds Healthy Families New York to be a Great Investment in Children and Their Families

A new study by the state Office of Children and Family Services and the State University of New York shows that Healthy Families New York (HFNY) has had a profound impact on the lives of children and their families; resulting in fewer incidents of child abuse, fewer low birth weight babies and greater success in school for kids whose mothers participated.

HFNY believes strongly in enhancing the healthy child development of all children in New York and the program promotes optimal child health, connecting families with medical providers for prenatal and well-baby visits and immunizations. It also helps parents to develop strong, positive relationships with their children and assesses children for developmental delays.

From the time the program began in 1995 through the end of 2009, HFNY provided 777,000 home visits to more than 25,760 families. Participants are screened to identify risk factors and stressors the family may face. Each family is offered long-term in-home services until the child is in school or Head Start.

The findings of the seven-year randomized controlled trial include the following:

  • Across the seven years, mothers who received HFNY reported many fewer incidents of serious physical abuse than mothers in a control group did.
  • At ages 2, 3, and 7, young, first-time mothers who entered the program early in pregnancy consistently reported and were repeatedly observed using lower levels of harsh parenting as compared to their counterparts in the control group.
  • From the study’s start through age seven, HFNY mothers who had substantiated child maltreatment reports prior to random assignment had markedly lower rates of involvement in confirmed CPS reports for neglect (38% vs. 57%), confirmed reports for physical abuse (3% vs. 13%), and preventive, protective, and placement services (38% vs. 60%) as compared to a subset of similar women from the control group.
  • Overall, HFNY mothers were more likely to be observed using parenting strategies that stimulated the child’s cognitive skills and to report using nonviolent discipline strategies.
  • Children in HFNY were more likely to participate in a gifted program at school, less likely to receive special education services, and less likely to report skipping school. Educational advantages were even more striking among children born to first-time mothers under age 19 who were offered HFNY in early pregnancy. These children were half as likely to repeat a grade and considerably less likely to score below average on a standardized vocabulary test.
  • In addition to impacts on parenting and children’s education, women who enrolled in HFNY at or before 30 weeks of pregnancy were about half as likely to deliver low birth weight babies. This effect was especially notable among black and Latina mothers, two groups that persistently experience high levels of poor birth outcomes.

In terms of dollars and cents, the study also found that with mothers who had histories of engaging in child abuse or neglect, Healthy Families New York generated a return of more than $3 for every dollar spent due to reduced involvement with the child welfare system and other government programs.

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Again, as note in the book, America’s Sacred Calling: Building a New Spiritual Reality (2010) by John Fitzgerald Medina, even for all the wealth that might exist in our nation, ‘We the People’ are barred from access to all but 17% if it.  That means within our current economic paradigm, the best use possible needs to be made of the portion of our nation’s wealth that we CAN access to help especially the most needy of our nation’s infants, children and their families.

“The gap between the rich countries and the poor countries of the world is rapidly increasing as noted above; however, equally disconcerting is the fact that the gap between the rich and poor is also increasing within the United States itself.  It may surprise some to know that the United States now has the most unequal income distribution of any industrialized country.  [bold type is mine]  Alarmingly, super-rich Americans who represent the top one percent of the U.S. population control forty percent of America’s total wealth.  Meanwhile, the top twenty percent of Americans, as a group, control eighty-three percent of America’s total wealth.  This means that the overwhelming majority of Americans are competing for only the remaining seventeen percent of the wealth after the super-rich and the rich take their lion’s share.”  [posted HERE]

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