American Dream Now a Nightmare for Millions

U.S. Census: One in Five Lives on Less than $7 per day

New Haven, Connecticut (April 16, 2007) From Combined News Services and Evolution Solutions Newsroom -- A 2004 US Census analysis reports that 60 million Americans now live on less than $7 per day. That's one in five in the U.S. living on less than $2,555 per year. At the same time, the richest 1 per cent now garner about 16 per cent of national income, double what they earned in the 1960s¹.

While global income inequality is probably greater than it has ever been in human history, with half the world's population living on less than $3 per day, and the richest 1% receiving as much as the bottom 57%, the fact that so many Americans are living on so little, is particularly confounding.

The so-called “wealthiest, most abundant nation on Earth” now has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation.² In light of the fact that one dollar spent in the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia buys what $3 or $4 does in the U.S means the quality of life for tens of millions of Americans is now on a par with huge populations living in the developing world.

And there’s more bad news to report from here. There has been no increase in non-supervisory wages since 1972. Twenty-five million Americans now depend on emergency food aid.³ This rapidly increasing trend is a brutal reminder of how the extreme political right has eviscerated the social safety net in the U.S. over the last 25 years. At a time when globalization is in full gallop, and its destructive effects are being felt in many working-class communities from Detroit to Connecticut, the national crisis is being exacerbated by the rising power and stature of a winner-take-all culture that celebrates greed and egotism by rewarding the super-rich at the expense of the poor.

With only 6% of global population, the US consumes 25% of the world's resources. A profile of Connecticut, one of America's richest states, is quite revealing. It possesses islands of some of the greatest wealth in the world, yet has three of America's ten poorest cities, including Hartford, the capitol. According to United Way of Greater New Haven, the New Haven-Meriden corridor has the 7th greatest gap between rich and poor in the US--in close running with some of the Old South’s poorest and most segregated states, Mississippi and Alabama.

Across the nation, the price of this economic dysfunction is an increase in the level of insecurity and pain for everyone, and there is almost no place left to live without encountering violent and non-violent crime, proliferation of drugs, guns, mental illness, lost hope, cynicism and corruption. At the same time, the middle class is being forced to bear the brunt of the economic cost for courts, police, prisons and welfare. While the median price of a home has doubled in the last five years, and with interest rates now on the rise, home foreclosure rates for first-time homebuyers are skyrocketing. Rents have followed suit, pushing millions more into economic hardship, poverty and homelessness. For too many Americans, the litany of violence, punishment and suffering seems unending, and the American Dream is now a uniquely Made-in-America Nightmare.

Evolution Solutions, a young, New Haven, Connecticut-based Internet start-up, is stepping into the breach to help bridge the chasm by organizing and circulating the enormous untapped wealth via a peer-to-peer gifts and wishes pool called GiveGet Nation. The non-profit social enterprise has launched its beta 1.0 application and its founders are welcoming the public to take the system for a test drive (www.givegetnation.net).

”If we can attract a mere 1% of what people in Connecticut have stored in lockers, attics, closets and basements, for example--a 1% that they will likely never use again--we can begin to wright the course and provide promise and possibility to the weakest among us here in the richest state,” said founder William Shanley. “And that does not even include the enormous work, intelligence and spiritual capital all around us. Everyone, no matter how rich or poor, has needs and resources. We provide a level playing field for everyone to participate in the infinite game of life through sharing.”

“By beginning to circulate the limitless human product, labor, intelligence and spiritual capital of the world, we can transform it a little bit at a time,” said Timothy Wilken, MD, a Carmel, California-based general practitioner and synergy scientist. Dr. Wilken is William’s partner in the initiative and is the inventor of Giftegrity, a give and get synergy engine used in GiveGet Nation based on the work of the late genius Buckminster Fuller. “We not only provide a means to circulate lumpy items like goods, but our application also organizes and circulates work, intelligence and spiritual power to build, solve and heal. If you are retired and need a volunteer to rake your lawn, we can provide it. The same is true with professional counseling, engineering, medical and legal services. If you have artistic and spiritual interests and pursuits, you can post gifts and wishes in those domains, as well.”

“To make a difference, it’s crucial that we get the message out and alert givers and getters to the opportunities and efficiencies afforded by participating in our person-to-person world of sharing,” William continued. “Unlike many other non-profits that use a condescending top-down model with large staffs and overhead, we’re the action that makes the rubber meet the road. With our tool, people don’t have to go through a bureaucratic cadre of social practitioners to meet people’s needs.”

US in Denial as Poverty Rises Next door to Yale, the bastion of privilege that turns out the land's leaders, lies a tent city of America's poor, huddled masses

by Ed Vulliamy

The north wind cuts cold and sudden across the historic green of New Haven. It blows through the 'tent city' where the homeless huddle. And it blows round the spires and quadrangles of Yale University, one of America's richest Ivy League colleges…⁴

“I’ve done a lot of research in our community,” William offered. “One homeless charity here in New Haven spend more than 80%of the $2.4 million it received in 2004 from a variety of government, public and private sources, before it housed one person. It has swank office space, a staff of 60 and only houses 105 people, 30 of who receive a direct 60% rent subsidy. The agency spent ten years of staff time and $10 million to purchase and renovate a 33 unit building. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Eighteen million dollars was spent by various agencies to house the homeless in New Haven in 2004, yet the consortium of agencies that did the study can’t even tell you how many of the city’s 1100 homeless were housed. Then they turned around and offered a ten year plan to the city requiring hundreds of millions to build housing units and provide services. How could they project a need and dollar amount when they couldn’t tell you how many homeless were being housed?

“The homeless are in plain site all over town, sleeping on the Green and begging for money on Chapel Street. And if the city housed them all, that would equal more than $16,000 per person, or $1,363 per month, enough to make payments on a $175,000 condo. The story is the same with AIDS services and services for the mentally ill. That’s just not good enough. This is not only true here in Connecticut, but all over the US.”

“HurricaneHousing.org housed 30,000 victims of Katrina in six weeks, and we will create success in this area, too, by matching needs and resources,” said Timothy Wilken, MD. “Everyone has a story, some wisdom to impart and a contribution to make to society. It’s important that we give everyone a chance. At GiveGet Nation, we can stimulate the flow of abundance between islands of abundance and scarcity in society in myriad ways. Give, get, share. Goods, actions, knowing, spirit. We’re a human values economy that runs on the primary sources of human capital that underlie all money and goods and services—the values themselves.”

“We are only as secure as the weakest among us. Increase the level of suffering anywhere, and you increase the level of suffering everywhere. And vice-versa,” said William Shanley. ‘Everything affects everything else. There are no closed systems in nature.’ That's 21st century quantum science. ‘For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.’ That's classical physics from the 9th grade. These are laws of the universe, and it's in our own self-interest to do the right thing or we end up bloodying ourselves. This message is not about laying a guilt trip on people, but alerting our neighbors to a daily crisis for 1 in 5 Americans--diminished dreams for at least one, two or even three --who cannot make ends meet.”

"No matter how rich or poor everyone has gifts and wishes and genius to share. That's our motto," remarked Timothy. “In so doing, we provide an even playing field for everyone to participate in the infinite game of life. ‘As you sow, so shall ye reap.’ ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ These are principles to be found in all spiritual paths, of all people, places and times. And they are also indicative of the nature of nature. We must make these principles come alive again in our communities or our future will most certainly be lost and the promise of America soon forgotten.”
“As you can see, we’re quite passionate about the subject. Many people believe because they are rich and powerful, or because they were born in affluent families, that this is the natural order. ‘Survival of the fittest’ does not explain how to address the needs of a Mozart born in Darfur. Nor does it recognize the value of the scores of generations who have come before us who have given us the gifts of language, math, invention, science, technology, the arts, and literature. It’s time for us to give back. ‘No man is an island’ and can live in isolation and not take in the air we breath, the light of the day, the weather and the seasons in the life we share. Everyone needs to give and take. Everyone has gifts and wishes. Giving and receiving are the eternal process of exchange we call nature and the universe. All the great mystics and philosophers have taught the value of giving and receiving. It is not only the right thing to do, it is also what we do as living organisms. All we need to do is awaken to this fact, to project ourselves into the process of give and take, and come alive.”

--end--

About Evolution Solutions, Inc.

Evolution Solutions, Inc. is a registered non-profit corporation based in New Haven, Connecticut whose sole purpose is to educate, inform and provide the means for people to consciously evolve “a world that works for everyone.”

For more information about Evolution Solutions, Inc., its founders and associates, please visit the website www.givegetnation.net or contact William Shanley.

Contact: William Shanley, President, 1+203+497+9334 or w.shanley@sbcglobal.net.

¹ Financial Times of London, “Seasonal cheers for new philanthropists.” December 27, 2006.

² Global Issues: Social, Political, Economic and Environmental Issues That Affect Us All. “Poverty Facts and Statistics.” http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Facts.asp

³ Alan Whyte, “Hunger in America: 25 million depend on emergency food aid.” March, 2006: World Socialist Web Site: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/mar2006/hung-m09.shtml

⁴ The Observer/UK, November 3, 2002.