The separation of wealth in America - The L Curve:
[1]
The red line represents a graph of family income across the population. The height of the curve at any point is the height of a stack of $100 bills equalling that income.
Median US family income (the family at the 50 yard line) is ~$40,000 (a stack of $100 bills 1.6 inches high.)
--The family on the 95 yard line earns about $100,000 per year, a stack of $100 bills about 4 inches high.
--At the 99 yard line the income is about $300,000, a stack of $100 bills about a foot high.
--The curve reaches $1 million (a 40 inch high stack of $100 bills) one foot from the goal line.
--From there it keeps going up...it goes up 50 km (~30 miles) on this scale!
Notice how even those with $1,000,000 income are down with the peons, near ground level, only the billionaires - the last .0001 percent, go vertical... $1 million = 40 inch stack of $100 bills, but $1 billion is a 1/2 mile stack of $100s. The billionaires now own more wealth than the bottom 95% combined!
After seeing this demonstration and/or movie- there is no doubt that the battle is not between the Democrats and Republicans, but between 290,000,000 regular Americans and the 400 Billionaires. This may seem a little extreme... tell that to the 250,000 homeless veterans [2]. The Rush Limbaugh right-wing lie that welfare only help lazy poor people is absurd considering the billions given to the ultra rich in tax cuts, and the billions wasted on weapons for the endless war they've manufactured.
The truth is that very rich and powerful people create wealth by launching wars and by creating "false scarcity"- convincing the masses to fight each other over petty issues so they won't notice that they are being used.
I used to write NPR asking them to cover the seperation of wealth... never happened. Wouldn't it be cool if some tv journalist aimed to be a modern day Edward R. Murrow, somebody just went for it on tv and aired a story like this, risking their career to get the truth out, for the betterment of all.