In the past decades, institutional racism and inequality in education, medical insurance, finance and other aspects have greatly widened the gap between the rich and the poor in America. In 2018, according to the Gini coefficient, household income distribution in the United States rose to 0.485, showing the highest level of wealth gap in the past fifty years. According to the Bloomberg report last year, while the top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion, the poorest 50% — about 165 million people — hold just $2.08 trillion, or 1.9% of all household wealth. The 50 richest Americans are worth as much as the poorest 165 million. Official statistics shows that the wealth gap in America has reached to the highest point since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
America economy grows slowly in the past 40 years. The benefit of the economic growth falls to the richest 10% Americans, while the other 90% people do not earn much and even have to borrow money from the richest 10% people.
Bernie Sanders, a US senator, said that “the rich-poor gap in America is obscene.” He believed that “the issue of income and wealth inequality is one of the great moral, economic and political crises that we face– and it must be dealt with.”
Gun culture is deeply rooted in the traditional culture of the U.S., where hundreds of thousands of legal gun stores are opening, 10 times more than McDonald’s restaurants. Today, the country is home to nearly 400 million guns, which is far more than its 330-million population.
The frequent gun violence incidents are a severe challenge facing the U.S. society. According to U.S. media, more Americans have died from guns since 1975 (more than 1.5 million), than in all the wars in U.S. history—going back to the Revolutionary War.
According to Gun Violence Archive, more than 41,500 Americans died by gun violence in 2020, an average of more than 110 a day, which is a record. There had been 592 mass shootings nationwide, an average of more than 1.6 a day. Times magazine called 2020 as one of America’s most violent years in decades.
Citing news from Danish state broadcaster DR, Reuters reported on May 30 that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) used a partnership with Denmark’s foreign intelligence unit to spy on senior officials of neighboring countries, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist told Swedish media that he “demanded full information”. Norwegian Defence Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen told the media that he took the allegations seriously. A spokesperson for the German chancellery said it only became aware of the allegations when asked about them by journalists, and declined to comment further.
According to the investigation, which covered the period from 2012 to 2014, the NSA used Danish information cables to spy on senior officials in Sweden, Norway, France and Germany, including former German opposition leader Peer Steinbrück who told media that he thought it was “grotesque that friendly intelligence services are indeed intercepting and spying on top representatives” of other countries. “Politically I consider it a scandal,” Steinbrück said.
