Economic inequality #1

 Most mornings, while eating breakfast, I peruse, on my tablet, the headlines of both the CBC and the Globe and Mail. Quite often the stories are the same in both media outlets. Usually most of the stories are not that interesting or at least they are not worth pursuing further. Every once in a while a story caches my eye and I do some further investigation. Sometimes I write about what I find. This morning I read two separate articles, one in each of my two mainstream media sites. Seldom have I read two articles, back to back that so clearly supported each other. Seldom do two stories prove that the other one is both pertinent and scary.

The CBC article reported on Oxfam's most recent report that said that by 2016, 50% of all the world's wealth will be controlled by the top 1%. This news, is of course, not a complete surprise. Many people, especially since the brief flash in the pan that was known as "Occupy Now" are aware that the world's wealth is unequally divided amongst the people.  What is surprising is that six years ago, the top one percent only control 44% of the world's wealth. That means, in spite of all the protests and all of the outraged editorials not only has nothing changed but in fact the inequality is getting worse. Another way, perhaps more graphic of stating the problem is: " The poorest 80 per cent own just 5.5 per cent of the world's wealth" (CBC).  How can this disparity in terms of income and therefore real control over one's life be getting worse?

The Globe and Mail had an answer. In an article labelled "Debt doubts cast shadow for professional couple with five kids", the Globe reported on a family with five children whose combined income is $360,000 and will be $450,000 when the female partner (who is a dentist) returns to work full time. The male partner is a doctor. He works part time in a clinic and makes $200,000 a year as well as teaches at a university one day a week for which he is paid $100,000 per year. They also expect that their living costs will increase as all five of their children will go to private school, and of course, they will need a full time, live-in nanny for the foreseeable future. This professional family's concern was that they would not have enough money to build their dream house. Their dream house, is to be built on a $1.1 million piece of property will cost an additional one million dollars.

It should be noted that they have been living rent free for the last year or so. They have no money put aside for emergencies or retirement. They also have no life insurance. I want to ask them what they have been doing with their money? But more importantly I want to ask how this family with all of their earning potential has the gall to suggest that they have any sort of financial problem. While the parents may not be close (yet) to being in the one percent club,  I suspect that attitudinally they would fit quite well into those who are attending the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland along with all of the other rich folks.

Perhaps if they spent a year living in the real world of families having a combined income of $93,700 (Stats Canada Average income after tax for family with two incomes), they would realize how skewed their view of life is. But I suspect not.  

If in fact the ever increasing income inequality is a problem (and I am not too sure that the above family would see it as a significant problem) they are certainly are not part of the solution. And that really is the problem.