For his on and off screen exploits, this year Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, star of MTV’s Jersey Shore, will net an estimated $5 million dollars. Between a book deal with a six-figure advance, an endorsement deal with protein-infused vodka for $1 million, and $60,000 per episode for Jersey Shore, The Situation’s successes have been so noteworthy that the Hollywood Reporter hailed the reality giant “The Corporation.”

Yes, it has been a good couple of years, but consider that if Mike “The Corporation” Sorrentino made $5 million a year consistently for the rest of his life and beyond, he would have to fist pump and promote clubs for ten thousand years to amass a fortune the size of Warren Buffett’s $50 billion. Buffet is among a corporate stratum of innovators, profiteers, investment bankers, CEO’s and hedge fund managers who make The Situation’s “corporation” look like the Kwik-e-Mart. They are the one percent.

One Percent? What’s that?

According to ThinkProgress.org, the top 1 percent of Americans take home 24 percent of the national income, own half of the country’s stocks, bonds, and mutual funds and are expanding at an ever alarming rate. Wall Street’s one percent-ers continue to flourish financially even during downed markets and through recessions where the middle class has shrunk. The top one percent of wealthy Americans today controls 42 percent of the country’s overall wealth, compared to the bottom 80 percent of Americans, who only control seven percent of wealth.

CEO and Executive Pay

The fact remains that, as seen above, wealth distribution in American stands to be quite unequal. CEO pay in America versus other countries is also unbalanced. According to Reuters, the chairman of the world’s largest bank is not German, Swiss, British, or American for that matter. His name is Jiang Jianqing and he heads the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. In 2008, CEO Jamie Dimon of the world’s fourth-largest bank, JP Morgan Chase, made $19.6 million dollars. Jiang made $234,700. Is this fair to you?

Political Implications of the One Percent

Republican candidates Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann are riding the coat tails of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan by proposing their very own flat-tax initiatives. Realize, though, that any implementation of a flat-tax plan by a Republican presidential candidate would result in an increase of taxes to the bottom 84 percent of Americans and sharp cuts in taxes to the richest one percent. On Meet the Press, David Gregory tried to pin Cain down on the fact that 9-9-9 would cost more, saying, “[Independent analysts] tell us they’ve looked at this … and it’s incontrovertible. There are people who will pay more.” Cain responded by saying, “That’s right, some people will pay more.”

Consequently, in the summer during the debt-ceiling crisis, Democrats could not talk of tax increases to pay for the debt without being demonized for “class warfare,” yet it is Republican Tea Party candidates today who are creating a “fair tax policy” by raising taxes on American families to make sure “everyone has skin in the game.” Republicans want a fair tax system, which they argue can be gained through the flat-tax, but just because everyone pays the same tax rate does not mean that the method of taxation is fair, balanced, sustainable or even remotely plausible for America.

Herein is the dysfunction in our capitalistic system that movements like Occupy Wall Street are attempting to end in Washington and Wall Street. Effectively, when Democrats call for drastic reform of a system, which includes increasing taxes on only the one percent, Republicans counter with a plan that scraps the system favoring even lower taxes for the one percent and overall higher taxes for middle class Americans. Disgusting.

Why You Should Care

“I just wonder when young people are going to rise up against this terribly oppressive [system],” said Rosemary Feurer, associate professor of history. “There was a new study that came out that said ‘15 cents of every dollar goes to Wall Street’. We are like the peasant peons paying tithes to the rich.”

Who is the one percent? In my opinion, they are control freaks relevant to you because they influence: half the wealth of the country, most major political positions, all Supreme Court seats, the entire upper echelon of the corporate world, financial system and maintain chief influence by lobbying anyone who stands in their way in Washington.

“‘Wealth indicates power.’ The thing I get from my classes is that we all know this,” said Feurer. “You may come out with more statistics, but it doesn’t motivate us to think that we can do something about it. Because of education, younger people are getting into debt that is going to make them like peasantry, tithing for the rest of their life.”

If it concerns student loans, tuition or taxation, it is not socialist to wish for a truly democratic society or a fair and regulated capitalistic system.

Why not give it a chance?