2. The prescription drug industry spent $116 million lobbying for legislation to prevent Medicare from bargaining down drug prices. It enabled drug companies to make an additional $90 billion in profit annually.
3. We spend more on healthcare than any other developed nation, yet we are the only member of the G-20 nations that does not provide health care for all its citizens.
4. We are a nation that uses more psychiatric drugs than any other nation.
5. Clearly, violence is part of our culture. Our murder rate is three to five times that of most other industrialized countries.
6. Compared to other developed nationalities, Americans are relatively ignorant, not only about international issues but about local issues as well. Thirty percent of Americans couldn't even name their vice president . Only one in five Americans hold a passport; their knowledge of and interest in the outside world is minimal.
7. Our manufacturing is in decline mainly as a result of globalization. If you're not manufacturing, you get out of touch, and soon, you don't know or how or what to innovate.
8. No one was indicted for the mistakes made in the economic crisis of 2008. The people that caused that crisis are still influencing economic decisions being made today.
9. Forty-one percent (41%) of Americans believe the end times are near; they expect Jesus Christ to return by 2050. If you're of this persuasion, it's unlikely that you're concerned with income inequality or living in poverty. Besides, most Christians who believe in the rapture are Calvinists who are taught that God has predestined who will be saved.
10. Children born in rich environments are healthier, perform better in school and have higher graduation rates. They also have greater chances of getting into the highly selective colleges that produce the core of our top professionals and leaders of thought. Many deserving children never get the chance.
11. White Americans will become a minority nationwide within about three decades.
12. The present pace of poverty is dangerously stripping away the people's egalitarian belief that we're all in this together; that everyone is given a fair shot at a good life.
13. Our poverty rate is approximately twice the European average.
14. Two-thirds of those below the poverty line identified themselves as white. Half of all American children will at some point during their childhood reside in a household that uses food stamps for a period of time. More than one in five American kids today face "food insecurity' meaning they don't always know where their next meal will come from. More than one in five!!
15. Nearly 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 60 will experience at least one year below the official poverty line during that period. Yet, corporate profits are at record levels.
What We Need to Do:
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