Battleangel

Sploid: The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

Despite the natural optimism of Americans, poor people in the United States have almost no chance of ever becoming wealthy — and poor blacks have even less chance of ever escaping poverty.

A shocking new study by American University economists shows how painfully unlikely it is that people in this country will ever get out of the hole they were born in.

The whole American Dream is a fraud, economist Tom Hertz explains in his report. Poor kids in Europe have a far better chance of becoming rich than Americans.

“A survey for the New York Times last year found that 80 percent of those polled believed that it was possible to start out poor, work hard and become rich, compared with less than 60 percent back in 1983.”

And yet just 1% of poor kids in America will ever become rich.

“Part of the reason mobility is so low in America is that race still makes a difference in economic life,” Hertz said.

Even the children of the wealthy have no guaranteed easy ride to Moneyville; only 22% of rich kids will become rich adults.

Economists say U.S. income disparity — the gulf between the extremely rich and the desperately poor — has been growing for a generation and rapidly accelerating since 2000.

It’s probably too late to save America from becoming a failed nation where a wealthy few nervously preside over an increasingly restless mob of poor people. Once the myth of the American Dream is completely forgotten in the coming years, poor people will know they have nothing to lose … and then it will be open season on America’s elite.

If the nation survives, it will look more like today’s Russia with kleptocrats and oligarchs surrounded by Uzi-armed bodyguards while the masses succumb to AIDS, death by drug and alcohol addiction, a rapidly declining birthrate and the eventual death of the country itself.

Sploid: Army puts veterans in poor house

A new report from the Government Accountability Office unearthed a host of horror stories involving the U.S. Army chasing ex-soldiers for allegedly unpaid bills.

The GAO report (PDF) tells of 900 soldiers who the Army claims owe $1.2 million. Many don’t, but their lives have been ruined.

Army specialist Tyson Johnson of Mobile, Alabama lost a kidney and had shrapnel tear through his after a mortar round exploded outside his tent. Needless to say his injuries left him unable to serve the third and final year of his commitment.

The Army demanded he repay the $2,700 enlistment bonus they had given him. When he failed to do so, the Army passed the debt on to bill collectors.