Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies @ TED presentation : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mark Roest <[email protected]> Date: Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 5:47 AM Subject: <Coalition> The social consequences of high income disparity. A meta-analysis in a Ted talk. To: Hello All, Some people might want to watch the video first, then read what I wrote as my understanding of it. http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html The social consequences of high income disparity. Here is the evidence that income disparities like those in the US are pathological. Even the rich, who in America, far beyond any other country, earn about 340 times more than the lowest paid worker in their companies, have about 20% more health impacts than the rich in companies with less income inequality. But the rich are far healthier, and live close to ten years longer, than the poor, within a society like ours. Only one country has more income inequality than we do: Singapore, which is essentially one city-country, in the way that San Francisco is one city-county. So as he demonstrates with graph after graph after graph: our society is pathologically unequal. And now is the time when we organize to put an end to it, by sharing our thoughts, speaking our minds, organizing politically, running for all offices, helping each other out, teaching what we know, challenging the lies, rules and results that thwart us in living our values of mutual support and fulfilling our potential as human beings, and that literally poison the majority of us, and the world we live in -- the world we count on to be a healthy and safe place for our children, ourselves, our parents -- and the rest of Creation. November 17 is coming soon; Van Jones and MoveOn are organizing a national day of resistence, and have created a very effective Teach-In kit for sharing and discussing the roots of the problems we face, and the basics of facing them and overcoming them. It is not everything we need to know, but it effectively presents some of what we need to know. Let's start. And another reminder for those who can get to San Francisco: the Green Festival is this Saturday and Sunday, and it's about education, empowerment and joy! Blessings, Mark -- -----------Coalition of the Willing----------- The Coalition occupies several spaces for communication and action. Keep the discussion on this list civil & assume good faith. Strive for brevity. For the what-why-where of Coalition work, look to http://cotw.cc. That wiki functions as a routing-portal and a locus for some of the work. All group efforts should maintain an updated statement of current focus, channels and spaces of work and anything necessary to support orientation & keeping up-to-speed. "BetterMeans" is where we coordinate our work: making proposals, endorsing & signing up for work, and tracking tasks. https://secure.bettermeans.com/projects/163 Share the film: http://cotw.me/film ----------------- You are subscribed to [email protected] To unsubscribe email [email protected] For more options http://groups.google.com/group/coalition?hl=en