A Single Hedge-Fund Hustler Makes More Than 85,000 Teachers: Why Are Our Priorities So Messed Up?

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/story/154671/a_single_hedge-fund_hustler_makes_more_than_85%2C000_teachers%3A_why_are_our_priorities_so_messed_up?akid=8460.277129.gDOgUL&rd=1&t=5

Why is America’s distribution of income so colossally obscene? You have only to look at Forbes' most recent listing of the top 40 hedge fund moguls who sit on top of our income pyramid. Together, their personal income from hedge fund hustling was $12.8 billion in 2011. The top hedge fund guru, Raymond Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, hauled in $3 billion all for himself, which comes to a whopping $1,442,308 an HOUR, (assuming he worked 40 hours a week for 52 weeks).

It would take the typical U.S. family 29.2 YEARS to earn as much as Mr. Dalio earned in one HOUR.

How much is $3 billion per year?

1. That’s as much as 60,673 typical U.S. families earn: Just think about that for a moment. One person earns as much as 60,000 hard-working, middle-class families.

2. That’s enough to hire 85,911 entry level teachers: While we’re laying off teachers right and left to close budgets that were destroyed by the Wall Street crash, Wall Street’s top hedge fund manager earns as much in one year as tens of thousands of entry level teachers who on average earn $34,920 a year. That what we get for failing to rein in Wall Street.

[postulater]

1. It's because our laws allow

Ownership of corporations to take away the profit generated by those who made it.

If all stock sales and profit were shared with workers things would be different.

[GeorgeGist]

2. Because the 'average' American thought ...

Reagan was a genius.