Put Down Tinder and Smell the Roses: Here’s the Truth

We will no longer remain silent We are the 99% Strength in Solidarity

The Occupy movement not only swept the nation but it crossed oceans and made its way to other countries and continents. People all over the world were Occupying everything – which was the original goal, was it not?

Along with cries to “Occupy everything” there were cries of “We are the 99%!”

And what is that supposed to mean? Well, in the movement for social-political equality, the Occupiers (who are in this case the 99%) took aim at the super-rich, which they call the 1%. They argue that the 1% of people have 99% of the wealth and that’s just not right! It’s us (the 99%) against them (1%)! Hear us roar!

Well my millennial friends, it’s time to close out that f–king tinder app and do some fact checking. Who has the wealth? Is it really the 1%? Surely it must be a higher percentage (let’s say 25%)? What’s true about this 1% vs. 99% conjecture? What isn’t true? And what do I think the solution is?

Read on to find out!

What’s true

The truth is that the majority of people, in fact, do not have the majority of the wealth. Most of the world’s wealth does belong to a small group of people, but it’s not 1% (we’ll get to talk more about that later).

While the numbers might not come out to 1 vs. 99 when it comes to percentages, the members of the occupy movement do have a point when it comes to the general inequality they’re fighting against.

Not only do the wealthy make more money than the rest of us, they usually pay a lower percentage of taxes on their money because they know how to work the system. These billionaires are getting taxed at a lower rater (or an equal rate) to poor Americans because they have the best accountants who know the tax code through and through.

What isn’t

The Occupy movement got it wrong when they said it was them verse the 1%. In actuality, they should be focusing on the super rich, the 0.01%. These people earn the most money in the world, and they actually own more of the global (and I guess in this case, national) wealth than ever before. The only other era where the super-super-rich owned this much wealth was during the 1920s which are known as the gilded age.

This should be more disturbing than the 99% vs. 1% argument because there are fewer people with more power than ever before.

What is the solution?

This is a complicated problem that needs multiple solutions. It’s not like we can go take the money from the super-rich Robin Hood style. But what we can do is push for legislation that closes the loopholes that the super-rich exploits in the tax code.

Additionally, since there is no ethical way to make billions of dollars, we need to push for higher pay for workers and stricter legislation to keep corporations in check. Walmart is a great example of this. Sure, the company’s worth trillions and their CEO makes billions, but Walmart employees are grossly underpaid in comparison to the rest of the workforce.

Entities like Walmart need to be held accountable, not allowed to grow fat.

With income opportunity drying up, due to driving forces like failed monetary policy and advancements in AI and automation, people are turning to some very interesting alternative-income-producing opportunities. For one, there’s obviously the gig economy, which has even crept into the adult industry. CEO of the adult Instagram platform xpost.com even claims that their gig-economy-inspired platform for sharing nudes is solving the income disparity problem – which some people may think is a stretch. One thing is for sure, the working class is turning more and more to gig-economy style jobs to supplement or even replace their income.