Thomas Pogge Quotes

America has become the most unequal society among advanced countries, and rich people are now free to spend as much money on political campaigns as they wish.

If the global economy is unresponsive to people who feel left behind, if inequality continues to grow, then we could end up seeing more and more of these divisions arise throughout advanced economies around the world.

There are rich people, and there are those who have money. They are not the same people.

A lot of people don't know the culture shock of how you can be in a rich area and then be in poverty. People don't know how different it is over there.

It is staggering that in the 21st century, half of the world's population - that's three and a half billion people - own no more than a tiny elite whose numbers could all fit comfortably on a double-decker bus.

Never in the history of the world have so many people been so rich; never in the history of the world have so many of those same people felt themselves so poor.

I was very sad for many days when I discovered that in the world there were poor people and rich people; and the strange thing is that the existence of the poor did not cause me as much pain as the knowledge that at the same time there were people who were rich.

Part of this country's problem is that people from New York City - Wall Streeters - don't think about the little guy who can't afford things.

The trouble with the profit system has always been that it was highly unprofitable to most people.

Income inequality is not a bad thing. Income inequality is a good thing.

... popular art has no chance of a healthy life, or, indeed, of a life at all, till we are on the way to fill up this terrible gulf between riches and poverty.

Income inequality is the central problem all the way across the world.

We always keep saying, 'We're the best, we're the best.' Other countries offer healthcare for their people. We don't, so how are we the best there? We've got poverty all over the place, and it's the haves and the have-nots, so how are we the best there?

There is plenty of housing - for the rich. But a series of outrageous policies ensure that it remains inaccessible to the poor.

You have to be very poor and desperate, or very rich, or lucky, to live in Islington. We don't have the people in the middle, the people who serve the community.

While I support granting drug companies patents to recover their investment and encourage innovation, companies that take advantage of this goodwill to build a monopoly must be stopped.

If someone thinks of something, some new innovation that benefits us all, and the market works properly, they get richly rewarded for that, and that's just terrific, and that creates inequality.

In America, the 1 percent and the 10 percent are doing just fine, but the people who are bearing the brunt of this economy are the ones who suffer.

Rich people are the experimental ground for every new development. The nature of progress is that what begins as a luxury for the rich becomes a necessity for the poor as it's developed and passed on.

America is divided by economics, and we as Americans, we've got to do a better job of supporting poor people.

Eat with the rich, but go to the play with the poor, who are capable of joy.

We [Americans] have to get beyond the greed-run-amok. We have to get beyond indifference to the poor and working people. We have to get beyond polarized politics.

Maybe for John McCain the American dream means seven houses-and if that's your America, John McCain is your candidate. But for the rest of us, the American dream means one home - in a safe neighborhood, with good schools and good health care and a little money left over every month to go out for dinner and save for the future. Does that seem like too much to ask? John McCain thinks it is.

The problem is that people basically dangle debt in front of us. And the cost for the poor of course is much higher than for the wealthy.

Most rich people are the poorest people I know.