By Rachel Goldfarb, originally published on Next New Deal
Top 400 U.S. Billionaires' Wealth Equals Brazil's GDP (Real News Network)
Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Rob Johnson comments on this data point from Forbes, noting that the social dysfunction caused by this kind of inequality isn't hitting the wealthy yet. But he says that even the wealthy are starting to realize that the country can't continue on this path.
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I think increasingly those billionaires and other wealthy people know that we're on an unstable trajectory, that the system is dysfunctional, the system's broken, and we are heading towards social conflict. Social conflict can take the form of more repression, military equipment, intimidation, incarceration. As you know, the prison population, particularly black male population, is exploding, and America has a tremendous eyesore associated with the incarceration of black males. But there is a sense in which if you have wealth or if you have the knowledge to create wealth, say, like an engineer at Apple Computer, you've got to be scared that it isn't going to go on, you're not going to be able to reap the fruits of your talents and your wealth unless we adjust course. I think wealthy people have to change course now. It's not sustainable.
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