The stock market just hit new highs. The Dow Jones index broke 30,000 for the first time. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

What's wrong with this picture?  It's just not the whole story. In fact, it's not even close for the average American.

Don't misunderstand, it is good the financial markets  are doing well but that is just one part of the puzzle. 

The top ten richest in America own 84 percent of the stock. In a democracy, rich is good because it is obtainable. And according to a Modern Wealth Survey from Charles Schwab, if your personable net worth is $2.3 million, you can call yourself wealthy.

And we do, for the most part, love, respect and need the rich... the athletes, coaches, tech giants, business figurers, entrepreneurs  and more, because it is entertaining, sustaining, providing needs for others and out there to be had. So much happens from the top down. That's democracy. 

Then there are the others of less than that. In the perfect democratic world, they perhaps by default, have the most clout of all. Forget the not-so-rich and lower classes and we have a top spinning wildly out of proportion to the whole. Money is power and power can corrupt the system if it is misused or abused at the expense of the lesser of us. We've seen and continue to see it happen. That's my point.

Nonetheless, congratulations middle class, you can still put pretty good food on the table. But sadly, the middle class, which was 50 percent of us in 1980, is just 36 percent of us today.

Woe to the bottom tier. You, working poor in many cases, bear most of the real world problems with no easy stairway to climb. Median household income was just $63,179 in 2018, the latest figure measured, and that would vary depending on how many in a household. In 2016, poor is classified at earning less that $25,000 for a family of four. From 1980 to 2014, the number of people living in poverty in the United States grew from about 29.2 million to 46.7 million. In this great, richly resourced country, that is unconscionable.  

Black or African American persons account for 2.6 times more covid19 infections than the general public, Hispanic or Latino persons are 2.8 times higher.And yes, the virus does currently play a major role but because of how we discriminate status, a great percentage of these are the lesser advantaged. This is a triple negative: In relation to their human peers, they are most likely to have less money, less power, less opportunity and shockingly, less respect. We should be ashamed if we are not already.

There are 12.6 million unemployed in the United States at this moment. 

There are about 1.5 million sheltered homeless plus more that do not lend to an accurate count.

There are 30-40 million at risk of losing their homes in 2020.

The coronavirus epidemic has left millions of families without stable employment.  More than 50 million people, including 17 million children, may experience food insecurity in 2020. That is most obvious in the massive efforts to put Thanksgiving food on the table for those who have little or none. You've seen evidence of that in your every newscast.

In 2018 (latest figures) 8.5 % (27 million people) had no health insurance.

Meanwhile, US billionaires have increased their wealth by $1 trillion during the Pandemic and welcomed 24 new billionaires into this elite group. The stock market's record high and the 2018 tax cuts skewed to the wealthy. And let's face it, a six percent break on even $100 thousand is considerably less that six percent on $1 million and more.

The take-away: If America is the Titanic, the bow, amidships and stern sank, both port and starboard if I know my history. We lost the richest and the poorest because, after all, we were all on the same ship. Of the 2,240 passengers and crew, 705 survived. Not good odds at all. 

(Here is a nice synopsis from the well documented cemetery of 150 of the victims, located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Visited several years back. Lot of stories here.) 

We cannot continue to grow without tending to those who must not be left behind: children and families, hungry, homeless, devaluing education and teachers, ignoring climate change, believing some of us are more important than others by race, gender, religion or any other bias that divides,  thinking we can make it by ourselves in a world where the farthest point from where we are now standing is less than a day away... come on, get real. In a win-lose game of life there are no winners, ever.

Oh, nice going Stock Market. Now, for the rest of the picture.