Anti Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 804-806

A play ethic starts from the premise that we can arrange our productive and social relations to support everyone's active passion: that a particular dispensation of technology, economic regulation, and democratic structures can remove the need for most, if not all, alienated labours.

Pat Kane
The Play Ethic




As of the end of 2011, U.S. households had $30 trillion in private assets and $13.6 trillion in liabilities for a total net worth of $16.4 trillion (PDF). How much is that? It comes to an average of $141,000 per household – free and clear of any debts.

But averages are extremely misleading, because wealth is so highly concentrated at the top.

...the bottom 40 percent of American households has a net worth of nearly zero (.2 percent).

If you take out the value of our homes, the bottom 40 percent has a negative net worth of minus 1 percent – meaning they owe more than their assets are worth.

...the top one percent has a positive net worth valued at approximately $5,700,000,000,000 (that’s $5.7 trillion).
What If the Greedy Rich Paid Their Share? 8 Things to Know About Wealth and Poverty in the US
Les Leopold
AlterNet

Bright Shining Star. The rocket, which was estimated to have cost the equivalent of six years’ worth of food for North Korea’s 24 million citizens, flew for one minute before disintegrating over the Yellow Sea.

Harper's Weekly Review
April 17, 2012