POPULATION & INCOME

Facts:
• 9/24/99 - The 400 richest Americans are worth more than US$1 trillion combined -- and that tops the gross domestic product of China, Forbes magazine said Thursday (press here)
• Bill Gates was still America's wealthiest, with a net personal worth of $85 billion, up from $59 billion.
• Of the 10 richest people in the world, five are Waltons—the ruling family of the Wal-Mart empire. S. Robson Walton is ranked by London’s "Rich List 2001" as the wealthiest human on the planet, having sacked up more than $65 billion (£45.3 billion) in personal wealth and topping Bill Gates as No. 1. - How Wal-Mart is Remaking our World
  Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
  April 26, 2002
  
• Microsoft Corp.'s founder and chairman, whose net worth briefly touched $100 billion last April, still has more money than the gross domestic product of the Philippines ($83.1 billion).
• 447 billionaires now have more wealth than the poorest 2.75 billion people on the planet put together (December, 2001)
• With 5%of the world's population America has over 25% of the world's prisoners.
  
• LINKS:
• The Edge has scores of stories that do not make it into the mainstream news media (press here).
• The Genocide nobody wants to talk about by Paul Davies (press here).
• September 17, 2000 - On a New Map, the Income Gap Grows By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON (press here) During those same 12 years, the bottom 90 percent of Americans, meaning everyone who took home less than $80,000 after paying federal income taxes, did not fare nearly as well. New York Times on the Web. 
• Feb. 14 , 2000 U.S. Eugenics Like Nazi Policy Study: Forced Sterilizations Carried Out Longer Than Thought  (press here) By David Morgan P H I L A D E L P H I A, — U.S. doctors who once believed that sterilization could help rid society of mental illness and crime launched a 20th-century eugenics movement that in some ways paralleled the policies of Nazi Germany, researchers said today. -- See relation to Social Darwin movement.
• February 13, 2000 - Los Angeles Sprawl Bumps Angry Neighbor By TODD S. PURDUM - NY Times (press here). By 2025, the state's population of 34 million is projected to grow by 18 million more (a whole New York State) and that of the Los Angeles region by 6 million (or two Chicagos).
• 1/18/2000- (press here) Income Gap Growing By Shannon McCaffrey The Associated Press W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 18 —The boom on Wall Street is widening the income gap between the poorest and richest U.S. families, according to a report by two Washington  think tanks. The earnings for the poorest fifth of American families rose less than 1 percent  between 1988 and 1998 but jumped 15 percent for the richest fifth, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute said in a report issued today.
• 9/1/99 Documentary explores population growth - Wednesday, September 1, 1999. It took from the beginning of mankind to the early 19th century for the population to reach 1 billion people... At the current level of growth, a billion people are added to the planet every 12 years. (press here) for ENN story. (press here) for the population clock.
• ISLANDS OF THE MIND Language Enclaves Are Havens, Prisons (press here) for maps of diversity of language populations in LA.