World Income Gap Staggering And Frightening

 Below is the link to a story carried on "NBC Nightly News" on Monday, January 20, 2014. (Unfortunately, the link has expired, but the basic point is covered here.) I've talked about income disparity here many times over the years and this story only goes to prove that the situation is dire and may just be a powder keg waiting for a lit match. The world's 85 richest people have more wealth than the three and a half billion poorest people. While the article mentions "societal breakdown," it fails to specifically mention the serious danger to the wealthy themselves, because, in my opinion, if and when that match touches the powder keg, they are likely to lose their heads, literally, as revolutionaries lose their heads, figuratively. With the instantaneous communication and fast travel of today, the upheaval will likely spread worldwide. At present there doesn't seem to be a political figure on the political right anywhere in sight who has the sense, or the desire, to try to lessen the growing income gap, and thus lessen the tensions.* A few very wealthy American individuals, like Warren Buffett, have spoken out about the growing inequality, but no one has really stepped forward to lead a movement to challenge the fascistic egomaniacs of the extreme right, and Buffett is well into his 80s. Any Democrat will be lambasted as a "socialist," or worse, as we've seen happen with Barack Obama, a man left of center, but generally only modestly so.

This is the link to the article, which is not all that long: 

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/worlds-85-richest-have-same-wealth-3-5-billion-poorest-2D11958883

 * As a comparison, see my article: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2010/12/german-question-part-sixty-three.html

WORD HISTORY:
Ken (Kenning)-This word, closely related to "can" ("to be able") and "know," is little used in the U.S. and Canada (I did recently hear it used on CBS's "The Big Bang Theory" comedy), but it does get some use in the U.K. It goes back to Indo European "gn(oh)/gn(eh)," which meant, "to know." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "kunnan," which meant "to know, to come to know/learn, to know how to do something from learning." This verb's causative form, "kannijan," meant "to make something known," which gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "cennan," initially with the same meaning. Old Norse, another Germanic language, brought its form, "kenna" (initially with the same meaning, but by the time it came to England, meaning simply "to know"), to England with Danish/Norwegian invaders, who then settled in the eastern part of England, especially in the northeast and in southern Scotland, and it seems to have influenced the meaning of the English word to simply mean "know." The noun form "ken" is means "knowledge, perception/feeling." The other Germanic languages have (verb/noun): German "kennen/Kenntnis," Low German "kennen/Künn ," Dutch "kennen/kennis," West Frisian "kenne" (verb), Danish "kende/kends-" (first part of some compounds which mean "knowledge/ken"), Icelandic "kunnugt" (noun, and verb form "kenna" means "to teach, make known"), Norwegian "kjenne/," Swedish "känna/kuns-" (first part of compounds meaning "knowledge/ken"), plus "kännadom," which also means "knowledge/ken." Unless noted, the forms generally mean "to know" for verb forms and "ken," "knowledge," for noun forms.