A blog in the Economist called “The 99 Percent” explains and argues the main issues that caused the Occupy protest. At the Occupy protests, many banners and signs read “We Are the 99 Percent”, which is a vague but contains a purposeful message. The message protesters are trying to convey is that there is a massive gap in incomes between 99% of the American population to the top 1% of the population. This huge income inequality is displayed on the “U.S. Real Average after Tax-Income” chart provided by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). In addition, the author of this blog post claims that the current system in America is prejudice because of two reasons. The first reason is that the system works more in favor for the rich and the second is that the rest of the population constantly has to pick up the bill when the people at the top, such as CEOs of major corporations, upset the economy.
Income inequality between the 1% and the 99%
I disagree with the author’s idea about the system being prejudice because people at the top damage the economy, which is not possible because the CEO has no direct impact on the economy. However, I found the huge inequality of incomes between 1% and 99% very surprising.