The One Percent is a documentary created by Jamie Johnson, the great grandson of the founder of Johnson & Johnson; it is an extremely informational documentary about the growing gap between the rich and poor. I learned a lot from about the economy from watching this film. One percent of the United States population holds forty percent of the nations wealth. The average person in the one percent earns about $1,000,000 per year while the average person in the other ninety-nine percent earns only about $35,000 per year; the average ceo earns about $35,000 for less than one day of work.
There are areas in the United States where rich people are moving and the poor people are disappearing. In South Chicago, an area known for its poverty, a lot of the public housing buildings have been closed down to be transformed into condos, leaving many people without a place to live. A rich person who recently moved into a condo in South Chicago said that there is a simple three step plan, "First you build a big police station, secondly you tear out all of the basketball courts, and lastly if there's a school that poor people attend you tear down that school.", "It is easier to just cleanse the Earth of these people." He has similar ideas to Herbert Spencer, a social Darwinist who said, allowing the rich to get richer is good for society because it discourages the poor people from having a lot of children and basically surviving. These people are very wealthy and want to keep the wealth in their family and create a perfect society with only the few wealthy people.
There are so many wealthy individuals who are directly influencing politicians to do what they want, how is that a democracy? Alfie and Pepe Fanjul are the owners of Florida Crystals Corporation, a sugar cane company based out of the Everglades in Florida. The sugar program is a combination of import quotas and a guarantee that the government will buy any surplus, it limits the amount of foreign sugar available in the United States to almost nothing. If you want sugar you have to buy it from the United States resulting in the prices being artificially inflated. No one knows exactly what it cost to produce one pound of sugar in the Everglades but it is the second most profitable crop in the United States. For every pound of sugar grown in the Everglades the American tax payer guarantees a price of $0.22 per pound which is way above the world price of $.0.07 per pound. The Fanjuls basically made millions of dollars because of a government program.
The brothers had the support of the democrats and the republicans by Alfie being the largest contributor to the Democratic Clinton campaign and Pepe being the largest contributor to the Republican party Bob Dole. People with a lot of money can fund politicians to have them on their side making decisions that benefit the rich. When the sugar company needed cheap labor the government made an exemption to immigration laws allowing foreign workers to be imported on a special visa to cut sugar cane for third world wages. The figures show that during that time period about ten sugar cane workers died per year and the government found massive minimum wage violations throughout the sugar industry. These companies make millions of dollars every year and they still can not pay their workers decent wages, it is ridiculous how greedy these people are.
Jamie Johnson grew up in an extremely wealthy family and even he sees that there is a problem with how the wealth is distributed throughout the people. With only one percent of people holding the majority of the nations wealth the vast majority of Americans are living life without the luxuries of being able to afford a good education, living in a nice house in a safe neighborhood, eating healthy everyday, and many other things. The bigger the gap gets between the poor and the wealthy the more removed the wealthy get from the world around them, if you're always hiding from the problem you're never going to find any solutions. This film showed me that money will not alone bring happiness, you have to appreciate what you have and look at the bright side of life.
There are areas in the United States where rich people are moving and the poor people are disappearing. In South Chicago, an area known for its poverty, a lot of the public housing buildings have been closed down to be transformed into condos, leaving many people without a place to live. A rich person who recently moved into a condo in South Chicago said that there is a simple three step plan, "First you build a big police station, secondly you tear out all of the basketball courts, and lastly if there's a school that poor people attend you tear down that school.", "It is easier to just cleanse the Earth of these people." He has similar ideas to Herbert Spencer, a social Darwinist who said, allowing the rich to get richer is good for society because it discourages the poor people from having a lot of children and basically surviving. These people are very wealthy and want to keep the wealth in their family and create a perfect society with only the few wealthy people.
There are so many wealthy individuals who are directly influencing politicians to do what they want, how is that a democracy? Alfie and Pepe Fanjul are the owners of Florida Crystals Corporation, a sugar cane company based out of the Everglades in Florida. The sugar program is a combination of import quotas and a guarantee that the government will buy any surplus, it limits the amount of foreign sugar available in the United States to almost nothing. If you want sugar you have to buy it from the United States resulting in the prices being artificially inflated. No one knows exactly what it cost to produce one pound of sugar in the Everglades but it is the second most profitable crop in the United States. For every pound of sugar grown in the Everglades the American tax payer guarantees a price of $0.22 per pound which is way above the world price of $.0.07 per pound. The Fanjuls basically made millions of dollars because of a government program.
The brothers had the support of the democrats and the republicans by Alfie being the largest contributor to the Democratic Clinton campaign and Pepe being the largest contributor to the Republican party Bob Dole. People with a lot of money can fund politicians to have them on their side making decisions that benefit the rich. When the sugar company needed cheap labor the government made an exemption to immigration laws allowing foreign workers to be imported on a special visa to cut sugar cane for third world wages. The figures show that during that time period about ten sugar cane workers died per year and the government found massive minimum wage violations throughout the sugar industry. These companies make millions of dollars every year and they still can not pay their workers decent wages, it is ridiculous how greedy these people are.
Jamie Johnson grew up in an extremely wealthy family and even he sees that there is a problem with how the wealth is distributed throughout the people. With only one percent of people holding the majority of the nations wealth the vast majority of Americans are living life without the luxuries of being able to afford a good education, living in a nice house in a safe neighborhood, eating healthy everyday, and many other things. The bigger the gap gets between the poor and the wealthy the more removed the wealthy get from the world around them, if you're always hiding from the problem you're never going to find any solutions. This film showed me that money will not alone bring happiness, you have to appreciate what you have and look at the bright side of life.
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