Three Problems: 50 Billionaires = 165 Million Poor People! Nobody is Watching Sports!! The Earth is Surrounded by Space Junk!!!

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

The 50 richest Americans now hold almost as much wealth as half of the U.S., as Covid-19 transforms the economy in ways that have disproportionately rewarded a small class of billionaires.

New data from the U.S. Federal Reserve, a comprehensive look at U.S. wealth through the first half of 2020, show stark disparities by race, age and class. 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 people in the country, meanwhile, are worth almost $2 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, up $339 billion from the beginning of 2020.

This paragraph comes from Bloomberg. The article is titled: "Top 50 Richest Americans Are Worth As Much As the Poorest 165 Million." The article is written by Ben Steverman and Alexandre Tanzi.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-08/top-50-richest-people-in-the-us-are-worth-as-much-as-poorest-165-million

Zac and Don discuss income inequality, potential solutions, and wonder if the issue is more of a common theme in American history than we want to believe.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

• US Open (golf) final round: down 56%
• US Open (tennis) was down 45% and the French open is down 57% so far
• Kentucky Derby: down 43%
• Indy 500: down 32%
• Through four weeks, NFL viewership is down approximately 10%
• NHL Playoffs were down 39% (Pre Stanley Cup playoffs was down 28% while the Stanley Cup was down 61%).
• NBA finals are down 45% (so far). Conference finals were down 35%, while the first round was 27% down. To match the viewership, activity on the NBA reddit fan community is also down 45% from the NBA finals last year (per Owen Phillips).
• MLB viewership is also down but I’m having a difficult time finding good data.
• It is unclear if this is just an American phenomena. Tour de France was up 73% in Europe. Toronto Raptors playoff viewership (compared to 2019 when they won a championship) was up 26% in Canada. It appears as if European football is also up across the board. Indian Cricket was up 15% in its first week.

This paragraph comes from the blog Frankly Speaking. The post it titled: "The Decline in Pandemic Sports Viewership." The author is Daniel Frank.

https://danfrank.ca/the-decline-in-pandemic-sport-viewership/

Zac and Don discuss if we should be concerned about the current decline in sports viewership.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

Since 1957, humanity has placed nearly ten thousand satellites into the sky. All but twenty-seven hundred are now defunct or destroyed. Collectively, they cost billions of dollars, but they were launched with the understanding that they were cheaper to abandon than to sustain. Some, like Sputnik, have burned up. Thousands, like Vanguard, will stay in orbit for decades or centuries, careering around the planet as ballistic garbage: a hazard to astronauts and unmanned spacecraft alike... ... ...

This article comes from the New Yorker in an article titled: "The Elusive Peril of Space Junk." The author is Raffi Khatchadourian.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/28/the-elusive-peril-of-space-junk

Zac and Don wonder how concerned we should be on junk in space.