Category: Rev. Joe Dirt’s Ramblings

The unsolicited, unreasoned, uninformed, unapologetic opinions of Rev. Joe Dirt

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Wealth Distribution in USA

Wealth Distribution in the USA - 2003

Just in case you cannot read the graph which is data on wealth distribution in the USA from 2003.
The top 1% have 25% of the wealth in the USA
The top 5% have 50.7%
The top 10% have 62.9%.
That leaves 90% of us fighting over 37.1% of the pie.
The only country with a worse mal-distribution of wealth is Mexico.

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“Wealth is a person’s net worth, expressed as:

wealth  = assets  – liabilities

The word “wealth” is often confused with “income”. These two terms describe different but related things.”

“A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. The bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth… Moreover, another study found that the richest 2% own more than half of global household assets.”

Source for above – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth

As Shakespeare so nicely put it, “There is something rotten in Denmark.”

Since you landed on this page this is an issue that probably concerns you.  Question is now what are you going to do about it?

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Senility

It must be the onset of senility.  I could not remember which way I put the toilet paper on the roller. Do I put in on so it comes over the top, or do I pull from the bottom? In my frustration I just tossed the roll onto the floor. Now the Charmin’ sits on the tiles and mocks me with squeezable soft whispers of, “Geezer…Geezer 

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U.S. expands H-1B fraud case against IT services firm

Gee whiz, what a surprise!

“The indictment charges that the methods used by Vision Systems “have substantially deprived U.S. citizens of employment.”

Link to article below:

U.S. expands H-1B fraud case against IT services firm

I was working at a Fortune 500 financial company.  My consulting firm stop sending over folks as they were paying Indian H1-B workers $20 – $25 an hour less than old consultants were receiving.  Guess whose contract was cut short.  Apparently they had an arrangement to bring over these young workers with a firm in Indian.  No proof, but that was the general supposition.

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The 3 Abrahamic religions explained

This is one of the best succinct explanations that I have seen.

It is from this blog   DJ Allyn – The Soundtrack for my Life

The following is an accurate Description of the three Abrahamic Religions:

There are three major religions in this world — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  All of them worshiping the same God — the God of Abraham.

Each has their own religious book that outlines their story, their history, and rules to live by.

Think of each of them like a movie.  The Torah is the first one, and the New Testament is the sequel.  Then the Qu’ran comes out, and it reconstructs the last one like it never happened.  there is still Jesus, but he is not the main character any more, and the messiah hasn’t shown up yet.

Jews like the first movie but ignore the sequels, (Matrix Trilogy) Christians think you need to watch the first two but the third movie doesn’t count. (The Godfather Trilogy) Muslims think the third one was the best (The Starwar prequels), and Mormons like the second one so much that they started writing fan fiction that doesn’t fit with ANY of the series canon.

 

Of course, the author of this seems to have forgotten Hinduism and Buddhism which are also major world religions, but they do come from a different movie studio.

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Links on H-1B Issue

As I find them I am going to add links about the H-1B / outsourcing issue that  is quickly eroding the life style of  middle class worker in this country.  All in the name of profit at any cost.

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Why high-tech firms bring in foreigners

See link to blog below. But I can answer this question with one word, greed.

And contary to the report’s opinion, they do promote and put H1-B workers into advance position.

And what irratates me to no end, is that most of the recruiting companines for contract programmers seem to have fallen into the hands of folks from India. Add to that the fact they do not pay these workers the prevailing wages like the law dictates, and you have another screwing of the American worker.

Why high-tech firms bring in foreigners — Link removed

 

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How the Middle Class lost the Globalization War

I’m not the only that thinks our leaders have let corporations sell us down the river for quick profits. I’m not for protectionism, but if we are going to have “fair trade”, let make it really fair and equitiable.

There is a vast concentration of wealth with a very small group in this country. They do not care what happens to the rest of us as long as they maintain and grow thier greedy portion of our communal wealth.

My argument was and remains that I do not care if you have more than one piece of pie as long as every has at least one. That is not happening. These folks have 90% of the pie and 95% of us are fighting over the remaining 10%.

How the Middle Class has become Globalizations designated losers (They no longer have the article up at the Philadelphia Examiner)

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Ted Said…

This is the cause of my life. It is a key reason that I defied my illness last summer to speak at the Democratic convention in Denver—to support Barack Obama, but also to make sure, as I said, “that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American…will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not just a privilege.” For four decades I have carried this cause—from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this country. It has never been merely a question of policy; it goes to the heart of my belief in a just society. Now the issue has more meaning for me—and more urgency—than ever before. But it’s always been deeply personal, because the importance of health care has been a recurrent lesson throughout most of my 77 years.>
— Ted Kennedy

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Where is Hillary when you need her?

Perhaps I should have phrased it a little differently… an email to the White House via their website.
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I cannot begin to tell you how disappointed I am in Obama and his wavering on the public option. Without a public option, IMHO, there is no health care reform.

I wish he would stand up to Right that are doing everything they can to defeat health care reform. It is time to grow a pair.
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I had some much hope when he got elected. He is turning out to be much too conservative for my taste, and too willing to compromise. To throw something as important as health care reform into the dysfunctional family that is Congress was a bad, bad, move. And now he is about to surrender about the public option. Where is Hillary when you need her? She has a pair.