We live in a world where.

[Locut0s]

So I thought it might be fun to do some back of the napkin calculations to highlights just how fucked up the world is. I don't mean this to bash the US specifically but I've found it a bit hard to think of some more global stats, so sorry for that bias. And yes these ARE taken out of any context so take them for what they are. No not all of these numbers are reasonable or serious arguments. They are merely meant to highlight the absurdity of where we are in the world right now, not a serious discussion on any one of these topics individually. That's for a different thread.

Also sorry if there are any glaring mistakes. I've tried to provide references on where I got the numbers. I double checked most of the calculations but would not be surprised if I screwed up somewhere.

I'll post some more if I can think of some and if you like the thread.

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What kind of world do we live in?

We live in a world where.

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We live in a world where:

The net worth of the top 1,426 people on the planet ( out of 7+ billion people) totals: $5.4 trillion dollars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_list_of_billionaires

It costs $50 to feed a starving child in Africa for a year:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/4/prweb10626378.htm

Assuming you could feed any African, adult or child, for 1.5x this then it takes $75 to feed an average African for a year. The population of Africa is 1.033 Billion (2011 fig from Google)

This means that 1,426 people out of 7 Billion could feed ALL of Africa for the next 69 years.

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We live in a world where:

The Walton Family fortune totals $144.7 Billion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_family

The minimum wage in the US is $7.25/hr

Assuming an average work week of 40 hrs this makes for a gross income of $15,080.

At this rate it would take an average Walmart employee earning min wage 9,595,490 years to earn the Walton Family fortune.

The CEO of walmart earns a total yearly compensation of roughly $20 million.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/business/walmart-names-chief-of-international-unit-as-new-ceo.html

This means ever 6.6 hours the CEO earns what his min wage workers earn in a year.

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We live in a world where:

The combined cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is expected to top $6 trillion.

The US spent $809 billion on education in 2010 and didn't get nearly what other countries get out of spending less. STILL this means that the US could have funded all education for the next 7+ years for the cost of these wars:
http://rossieronline.usc.edu/u-s-education-versus-the-world-infographic/

The cost of the entire Apollo program was $25.4 billion in 1973 which is about $129 adjusted for inflation. For the cost of these wars we could have funded the Apollo program 46 times over!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program

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We live in a world where:

The price of a 9mm bullet in the US, as sold in stores, is roughly about 50 cents.
The price of feeding a starving child for a day is roughly 25 cents

[madokie]

1. The 99% of us

have to do something to change this. WE have too. The ballot box is where we start, the ballot box is where we win. IMO

[Locut0s]

3. I agree. But..

Sadly it's a much deeper problem than that. This is a deeply ingrained cultural problem that affects most major viable political parties in most free nations. It may have started with Reagan and his ilk but at this point most political parties of any stripe are on the "all for me none for you" band wagon. I wouldn't argue there aren't some important exceptions here and there, but it's going to be a rather difficult to turn this ship around. Not that we shouldn't try.

[Taitertots]

2. The US has become a Kafkaesque perversion of all the qualities that used to be admirable

All of the reasons that people used to say America was great have effectively vanished.

The average worker is the most productive in all human history, but gets paid less than their grandparents.

People who want to work can't and people who don't work (shareholders) have taken all the productive gains of the last 40 years.