The fiction of shortages

Summary: If one can always generate a new Bitcoin or print more paper money, then 'lack' of money certainly cannot be the issue

THE UNITED STATES -- more so than Britain -- demonstrates huge disparity in wages [1], despite or because of prosperity at the very top. As one writer has just put it, "America has its own real-life upstairs/downstairs thing going on at the moment, best embodied by the Walton clan, who own the lion's share of Walmart Stores, Inc. Walmart is the single largest private employer in America with a work force of some 1.3 million. Each of the four Walton's who have an interest in the stores increased their net worth by $7bn last year alone. Meanwhile, the company's sales associates, who make up the bulk of the work-force, earn an average of $8.81 per hour – less than the federal poverty level for a family of four." People are willing to kill one another over basic merchandise in places like Walmart [2] -- something which in in a debt-saddled Spain we cannot see quite because despite poverty the gap between rich and poor there is not as massive as it is in the US and UK (number 1 and 2 when it comes to disparity, depending on how it is measured). It's not just class war. The UK finds new reasons to feud with the Spaniards [3], as always, but one thing that all Western nations seem to agree on is that it's OK for the top 1% of salary earners should earn about as much as the bottom 50% combined (if not much more). No wonder there is a rush to Bitcoins [4] and other alternative currencies.

Wearing golden things and living in a palace at one of the world's richest countries, one man in a gown speaks out against corruption and greed [5,6]. Sadly, we still live in a world where we look at to the richest people (like Bill Gates) as though it's them who will reduce poverty. All they do is hoard and speak about poverty without actually doing something except contribute to the problem (albeit in secrecy). ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Walmart and Downton Abbey: rampant inequality and detachment from reality





2. Mobs, Stampedes, Fights, Brawls, A Stabbing And Shooting: A Video Compilation Of Black Thursday 2013





3. David Cameron: Gibraltar diplomatic bag incident was an 'extremely serious action'

   David Cameron has said that Spain was guilty of “an extremely serious action” by opening a diplomatic bag at the Gibraltar border and disclosed that the Spanish have assured the UK “this will not happen again”.
   
   Britain asked Spain for an “urgent explanation” this week after Guardia Civil officers opened and searched a UK diplomatic bag as it crossed the border from Gibraltar.
   
   Mr Cameron said he had received the assurance that it would not be repeated after Spain played down the incident and insisted that “technically it was not a diplomatic bag”.





4. Missing: hard drive containing Bitcoins worth €£4m in Newport landfill site

   A digital 'wallet' containing 7,500 Bitcoins that James Howells generated on his laptop is buried under four feet of rubbish





5. Pope Francis 'is mafia target after campaigning against corruption'





6. Pope Francis 'Evangelii Gaudium' Calls For Renewal Of Roman Catholic Church, Attacks 'Idolatry Of Money'