Directions: Today, we will begin watching Inequality for All. While you watch, please take notes. In this blog space, jot down your initial questions and impressions in Three (3) paragraphs using direct evidence from the documentary. Please use the list of questions from Robert Reich's website to help us begin our discussion.
Study Questions
1) Describe a moment from the film really sticking with you – maybe you found it particularly inspiring or particularly troubling. What was it about that moment that is so memorable?
2) Imagine going home and telling a friend about this film. What would you say?
3) What parts of the film were surprising or made you sit back and say, “Hmmm, I need to think more about that? Or, “Wow, I never thought about that.”
Visit the webiste:
View this brief explanation about the economic structure in America, which is similar to Reich's.
Peyton Levental
ReplyDeleteIn the documentary "Inequality for All", a point that really stood out to me was that 400 people have more wealth than half the united states. This seems crazy to me considering that there is 325.7 million people here! The top 1% Americans have 40% of the money. Our creativity and how much we sell used to be an even up growing angle with the salary that middle class would get. Now, the salary has evened out and has yet to grow up. This prevents us from buying the things we need. This also affects the companies itself as well because without us buying from them, there company will not grow and not do well.
If I was going to go home and talk about my family or friend about this film, I would talk about how in the USA, we place 64 place on the inequality chart. I would talk about how much this is a problem. I would also talk about some ways we could prevent this. We need to find a way to even out wages given to people. I would also tell then that the middle class is actually the most important class.This is because we need them to buy the products that they first class entrepreneurs sell. With the low amount of money the Middle class is getting, the higher class companies will not do well.
Something I've never thought of before was that rich people save money. As the rich man said in in the documentary, he only needs 3 pairs of jeans and 4 shirts. He doesn't buy many things at all,but this could also be a problem because we need them to spend money to even out the money saved and spent in the world so it can go back to the middle class, but instead they save most of it, so the middle class doesn't get much money back. He even said that he doesn't know where his money even is. This differently shocked me when I heard this.
Julia Campbell
DeleteI agree with your last paragraph, It also shocked me when that rich guy said he didnt even know where his money was, he clearly doesn't need to save that much so I personally think that he should donate some of his money to charities or donating it to that Vietnamese place he likes so much 😂
Lucas Kaufman
ReplyDelete1. A part of the film that I can’t seem to get out of my head is the idea of the middle-class, not the top 1% “job creators”, as the center of the economic universe. It is a misconception held by lots of people- not just your average Joe, but also some of the current government administrators. I, too, certainly knew about this misconception and thought it for some time. I also love the comparison the video made about the “trickle-down vs. middle-out economics” and “center Earth vs. center Sun”, as it is a very similar thing, since there is an ideal that people have, or a thought regarded by the community as “common knowledge”, and when that ideal is challenged it is very hard to just let go.
2. Telling someone about this film, I would say it was very eye-opening for me. First, the comparison of the “92% ideal income equality” versus “what Americans think it actually is” versus “what it ACTUALLY is”. From this to climate change, there are a lot of things Americans have these misconceptions about, and know that they’re not great and should be improved but aren’t aware of how bad and out-of-whack these things really are. Then, I would love to mention the idea of “middle-out” economics. In the video, Robert Reich talked a lot about how it is the middle-class, not the top 1% as most people believe, that is the heart of our economic universe. He believes that we need an economic system that reflects this truth in order to survive as a nation. I don’t expect to see this kind of change anytime soon due to our current administrator, but I think the middle-out economy is definitely something that we should work toward as a country.
3. As I previously mentioned, the part about the middle-class as the center of the economic universe was something that made me think. Another part of the video that “stirred up my mind” is the charts displaying the incomes of each group of 20% in terms of wealth and income. Though not technically part of the main documentary, those charts opened my eyes to how uneven the distribution of income in this country really is, from the middle-class not being able to afford to buy a home or even a cell phone to the top 1%, making about 100 times that of the poorest Americans, having some 10 times more money than they know what to do with. I was also concerned with the chart showing the increases and decreases in production. It showed a suspension bridge-like formation with the two peaks occurring in 1928 and 2007. Huge stock market crashes happened in the following years (1929 and 2008), and I started to worry that this system of economics could lead us toward a crash greater than either of the two preceding.
Drew Wachtel
ReplyDelete1) Describe a moment from the film really sticking with you – maybe you found it particularly inspiring or particularly troubling. What was it about that moment that is so memorable?
The moment that was sticking with me is when the rich guy that was in the one percent on the graph said that he barely uses his money and just keeps it in his bank account. The reason why I was so shocked by him saying that is because I thought rich people spend a lot of their money on things they don’t really need but this guy was different even though he has a nice house and the most expensive Audi but other than that he spends his money on what the Middle class American would buy like for example he eats at local cheap restaurants and doesn’t spend his money on the five star 300 dollar meal like most people of his kind.
2) Imagine going home and telling a friend about this film. What would you say?
I would say that the middle class has a more important role in society than people think. I would also talk about how much this is a problem in this country and if we don’t fix it there might be another big crash in the stock. I would also talk about the rich guy that is the CEO of his own pillow company and he said if the middle class isn’t making a lot of money it will hurt him because the middle class is supposed to buy his product but they can’t because they have to save up on other things like a house, food and drink and clothes. The last thing that I would talk about with my family is about the host because it is amazing what he has been able to accomplish with his height and all.
3) What parts of the film were surprising or made you sit back and say, “Hmmm, I need to think more about that? Or, “Wow, I never thought about that.”
One part of the film that was surprising to me was how much the middle class is struggling to make a living now a days. I never knew that the middle class was in that big of a problem. I always considered my family to be middle class and after watching this film I think we are upper class because we have all of the living essentials to live without the stress that we might go to sleep hungry every night. Also I was surprised to see the the high upper class have half of the USA’S wealth and 300 million people live in this country it really is amazing to think about.
Peyton Levental
DeleteI agree with your first paragraph for it also surprised me very much that even the richest of guys like the one in the documentary doesn't spend all of his money on fancy, unneeded items.
Evan Brenner
DeleteI agree with you saying that the middle class has a more important role in society than you think.
Ben Worthley
ReplyDelete10-10-18
One moment that really stuck with me was the prices of things go up and the pay goes down. The video had a chart that showed me the prices of things in red and the cost of things ( like food,gas,etc.) where in blue. The red part of the chart went up with the blue at first. Then the red went up and the blue stared to go down. I like that really stood out to me because the cost of thing went up and wages went down. How are the working class going to get by?
2. I would tell them to go watch this film. The movie so far was really enlightening. You know that the top 20% is making a lot, and the bottom 20% is not making anything,but I did not think it was that bad. The first video we saw should us a chart that showed us how much the bottom 20% make. It nothing compared to what the middle class makes,and That's nothing compared to what the top 20% make.
3. That the middle class keeps the economy going. You would think that since the rich people are making a lot of money that they would spend a lot of it. The video said that they keep and save a lot of it. And that the middle class is speeding a lot of money. The middle class buys everything. Like the person in the video said. “I can only have so many jeans.”
Rene Roustand
ReplyDelete1. One moment from the documentary that stuck with me is that the middle class keeps the economy going. This troubled me because my family live in the middle class, and there is so much my family and I can do before we are overworked.
2. If I were to tell someone about this film, I would say "We arelucky to have all this. The economy has changed."
3. One part that got me thinking is how the poor people cope with this economy problem
Abhi Sharma
ReplyDelete1. From the documentary what sticked with was that the one percent people who make a million dollars barley spend their money instead they save it because what are you going to do with so much money. The one percent person owns a pillow factory he makes good pillow and make it cheap price where people can own 2 pillows. Then he said, " Why make expansive pillow if people can't even afford them.
2. If I told a friend about this I would say, "That people should get paid equal". From the video explanation economic.
3. The part that got me thinking is why poor people don't get paid equal like the rich and middle class?
Jayden Cho
Delete10/10/18
Regarding your 3rd paragraph, although of course not all the case but in certain ones poor people aren't working as hard as some other middle class and upper class members. Of course some poor people work very hard but do not receive equal income as others since of any inequalities, but for the most part I think it is because of the difference in the importance of their careers.
Julia Campbell
ReplyDelete1: What I’ve seen of significance from this documentary was when Robert Reich made the point that our economy runs on the middle class. This was shocking to me because I never truly thought about it that way. The documentary also makes the point that inequality is inevitable. I believe this because no matter what, society likes to point out things that are contrary to them because people aren't typically comfortable with things that are different from what they’re used to. I also believe that it's strange how we look at our lower and middle class whilst they end up managing the economy in a way.
2: If I were to go home and tell a friend about this I would tell them about how the average man in the middle class makes about 33,000 per year, while the top 1% makes over 1 million dollars. I would also mention how corporations that already hold all the money that they need can't be bothered to distribute some of it to their actual workers so that the economy would properly even out like it was made to. Overall I’d probably just tell my friend about the inequalities that come with large enterprises.
3: A lot of moments from this film surprised me, but what I found that was most unexpected, that I also stated in my first paragraph, was that inequalities are inevitable. It’s kinda funny to think about it because you wouldn't think that it was true but it is. When you live in a world like this, you have to think about things on the bright side, but when inequalities are inevitable, it can be hard for some people to do that. You really have to consider what the middle class is making and how they struggle to buy from large corporations, so raising the price isn't always the way to go.
I agree with your post. Especially the 1% and the middle class needing to be strong.
DeleteSophia L
DeleteI agree with your comment I did not know they relied on the middle class so much.
Frankie Huntress
ReplyDelete1. one part that sticked with me was how four hundred have half of the money in america when i think about this it is not that shocking because andover is middle class town and 1 million dollars is a huge amount of money and kanye west just spent 7 million dollars on a car and he is not even in that top 400 people but it does make scene if you have a lot of money you invest that money and you make more money and on and on thats what stood out to me
2.i would tell my friends how four hundred people have more than half the money in america.
3.one part that made me think was when they said middle class was struggling i don't know if this is what it is every where but if went around andover high school and asked people if they where struggling economically
Davis Blanch
Deleteyour question 2 I agree with and also i find it crazy that someone would spend money on a car that costs about 8 times more than most peoples houses.
ReplyDeleteSophia Lakos
The most shocking take away I had from this documentary is that salaries are not increasing with work productivity. It seems that it has stayed the same pay rate for many years now, which does not match up to the work being done. If the middle class is what keep the economy equal they will have to start paying better. This plays a huge part in why the US is ranked 45 in income inequality.
I would ask if they knew about all of this. Until seeing some of this film I had no idea this was really going on. I would let them know that 400 people in the 1% have more money than half of the US. Which is a perfect example of pay inequality.
I never thought of the rich spending too little. I would suspect some of them to be irresponsible with their money and spent it. After they interviewed that guy and seeing how little he spends when he makes so much really shows how much is going back in to jobs.
1.) A moment that struck me in the documentary was when Robert Reich was when he was talking to the rich guy and following him around. The guy said, “even the richest guy sleeps on only two pillows.” and, “I don’t enjoy having a 5-course meal, and there are only so many times we can go out to eat per year.” This was memorable to me because it made sense that even the richest people don’t spend their money as fast as they get it.
ReplyDelete2.) If I had to describe the documentary to someone I would say it is certainly informative. It has many points and shows many perspectives.
3. ) A part in the documentary that surprised me was someone saying that we need a strong middle class to keep the economy stable. Another was the Middle class went deeper into debt during both periods- during peak years 1928(stock market crash) and 2007(Housing crash).
Julia Campbell
DeleteI agree with you in your second paragraph. Most people, including myself, learned a lot from this like how the economy practically runs on the middle class, and that the top one percent makes so much money that they could never spend it all.
Jayden Cho
ReplyDelete10/10/18
1. One moment during the documentary that really stuck with me was that although the U.S. is a country based off of liberty, equality, freedom, it also has one of the most greatest wealth inequalities in the world. When people think about the US, they think of all the efforts to have equality in women, LGBTQ+, and other races. However, it is sad to understand that the U.S. has never really fixed the problem with the huge wealth inequality. You can have people ranging from an annual salary of over $10 million to just having pocket change. One example of this is in New York or Boston, you could have people living in 4 story giant apartments, to being a street beggar on the sidewalks. And the ironic part is that this inequality has been getting worse and worse over the past few years. Bigger, larger companies are buying smaller companies, and I fear in time there will only be a couple huge companies running everything in the world. Another factor in this inequality becoming worse in my opinion are how some people already in high positions try to make it a lot easier for them to stay in this high position. For example, from the way I see it, a very popular campaign two years ago was of equal taxation for all, no matter the wealth income they had. This would be good for people with higher incomes for they wouldn’t be “losing” as much money as before, and would continue being greatly higher than other lower income citizens.
2. If I were to show my friends this documentary, I would ask what they think the wealth distribution was, and the ideal just like in the short video clip we saw before the documentary. Then I would show the actual distribution, and probably explain the reason behind this. I think the main reason of this horrible wealth inequality is the fact that racism/race superiority, gender inequality, and more still exists, no matter what people say. There will always be a minor group of people who will never have the same rights and equality in all aspects, for almost all of American history it has always been about white supremacy. Only just in the last 50 years have we started to grow more and more and understand free rights for all, but this inequality mind set is still in the majority of the U.S. population. I think it is utterly impossible to get rid of this mindset for the whole 350+ million people living in the U.S., but to lessen this mindset and to hide this as much as possible can be done. There are many ways to achieve this goal, and in some hypothetical cases could result in a socialist dystopian society similar to “Anthem”, “The Giver”, and more, but one safe way for now is to first having our wealth distribution to an ideal, just like in the documentary and short video. This would cause an even more amount of people working harder to gain that top class, and with more Americans working hard would undoubtedly increase the economy. Of course an ideal wealth distribution is very hard especially since the U.S.’s is one of the worst compared to our strong country, but with time and a strong middle class will it distribution start to get more and more “Ideal”
3. One part of the film that definitely surprised me was the continuous repetition of saying that a strong middle class would create a strong economy. I think a lot of people don’t understand/know of this because since the beginning we always think that the highest upper class like CEO’s, bank owners, etc. would be the ones kind of maintaining and controlling the whole classes, but it seems like the opposite. Think of it like this, although a very basic analogy, it is like a dog owner having a dog. You would think that the dog owner is controlling the dog, for he is much more “advanced” and “higher up” than the dog, but when you really think about it, it is just the opposite. There’s a reason why the dog owner has to continuously feed and take care of the dog, and if the dog is well fed and taken care of, then the dog’s owner will have an increase in pride and will take even more better care of the dog.
Evan Brenner
ReplyDelete1) A moment from the film that really stuck to me is that a lot of people in the top 1 percent don’t even use all of their money that much. They have all of this money and are kind of putting into waste if they don’t use it. I would think they would spend on things that they don’t necessarily need.Personally I know if I had all that money I would buy the best possible house car etc. I could buy and probably things I don’t need to live a normal lifestyle. Also things that they need to live a normal lifestyle they don’t need like 5 of them. For example, the normal person only 1 maybe 2 pillows.
2) If I went home and told a friend about this film I would say that all roles in the society are more important than you think. I would also tell them the top 1 percent of people that have so much money don’t spend it on useless things or things they don’t need. Also if they haven’t watched the film they would probably get something good out of it.
3) One part of the film that surprised me was that the middle class runs the economy. You would think that the first class or the rich people would run the economy because they are the first class and the highest tier.
Drew Wachtel
DeleteThat's what I thought before I watched this film. I thought that the richer people ruled the economy and not the middle class because the rich people have the power positions like a CEO of a company.
Gannon Sylvester
ReplyDelete10/9/18
English ©
Documentary Questions
One moment from the documentary “Inequality for all” that is really sticking with me so far, is when he talks about the income difference in America. When he showed the chart that had the 3 different examples of how Americans thought it was, though it should be, and what it actually was. There was such a drastic difference in how much the bottom 50% was struggling and how much extra money the top 1% had. I will always remember how they said that the richest 400 people in the US have more money than half the country.
So far I would tell him how much I have learned so far in this film even though we have only watched about 20 minutes of it so far. I would say that even though the middle class has much more money than the “poor’, they are still struggling badly compared to the rich. I would tell him that 400 people have more money than half the country combined and we are also 64th in the country in income inequality. I would also say that one of the top 1% in the country that they interviewed makes over $30 million each year and doesn’t have anything to do with his money because he makes so much of it. He said that he has a nice car, a nice house, and doesn't need much else. I would say that he likes to donate a lot of it to charity because “there only so many things you can buy, and only so many times that you can go out to eat.”
When they were talking to the women and husband about how much they make I was very surprised to see that they were barely surviving. When the husband said that he got laid off and hasn't gotten a job since I felt sorry and when I found out that he didn't have a phone I started to appreciate more the things that I had. The women also said that they were living by paycheck and only had about 25$ in her savings account, this made me wonder how many other people are living like this and are struggling as much as they are.
Davis Blanch
ReplyDelete1. One moment that really stuck out from the film to me was the chart showing the workers' wage flattening out but the cost of things kept rising. It was troubling because if it keeps flattening out when our generation and the one after us get jobs it will be hard to afford simple things we need to survive.
2. If I went home and told someone I know about the film I would tell them about how big the wage gap is and I would tell them that the richest people make more than all of the low class and some of the middle class combined.
3. Some parts of the film that made me want to think more about were the parts where he talked to the company owner that makes 30 million a year and the owner said he does not need to make that much because you can only buy so many things with money and you can only go out to dinner so many times a year.
Mitch Keamy
ReplyDelete1.) One moment that really stuck with me was when Robert Reich gave us a tour of his Mini Cooper. I remember it the most because I thought it was funny and it is the perfect car for him.
2.) If I were telling my friend I would explain to them what americans think our wealth divide looks like and then I would show them what it really looks like and keep going from there.
3.) When we were shown how much money the 1% actually has I was shocked because its a huge fraction of all money in America.
dont read this one, I accidently submitted my draft
DeleteMitch Keamy (revised)
ReplyDelete1.) One moment that really stuck with me was when Robert Reich gave us a tour of his Mini Cooper. I remember it the most because I thought it was funny and it is the perfect car for him. But a more serious takeaway from this was where the bulk of americas wealth is. The middle class makes about $50,000 per year, while the rich people are making millions.
2.) If I were telling my friend I would explain to them what americans think our wealth divide looks like and then I would show them what it really looks like and keep going from there.
3.) A part of the documentary that really shocked me was when we were shown how much money the 1% actually has I was shocked because its a huge fraction of all money in America. People in the lower class are scarping for food and money while the 1% has too much money to spend in a lifetime.