Truth For Truths' Sake

 

As most of our perceptions are relative, it is usually easy to find the irony within someone’s convictions, a practice the modern intelligentsia’s culture likes to utilize to in their deconstructive efforts. For me, what matters is how contradictionary the irony is and how unreasonably the people hold on to their assumptions.     

A recent example is the occupy Wall Street protesters, whose gripe is with the income disparity between the 1% richest Americans and the rest of the country. But what happens when one looks at the issue from a progressive, global perspective and expand that to consider who the richest 1% of the entire world are? Some really interesting numbers emerge.

How much do you need to earn to be among the top 1% of the world?

$34,000.

That was the finding  that World Bank economist Branko Milanovic presented in his 2010 study. Going down the distribution ladder may be just as surprising. To be in the top half of the globe, you need to earn just $1,225 a year.

In short, most of those protesting in the Occupy Wall Street movement would be considered wealthy in most of the world. In fact, they might perhaps be considerd extraordinarily wealth-as many of those protesting are children of Americas 1%, fervently exercising their (parentally sustained) rebellion against their parents.