American Oligarchy? What's corrupting America's government.
Channel: Sven Brimstone
Date: 2019-05-05

SOURCES & CORRECTIONS NOTED BELOW

Does your voice matter? Skepticism of the American system is gaining ground among politicians and pundits, but what can we really say about how the system is doing? In fact, what is the American system in the first place, and what is it supposed to do? These are hard questions that are likely to come up in the next few elections. On this special episode of Long Story Short, I try to get to the bottom of what recent research actually says about the state of the American system. As it turns out, it's a pretty long story.

TRANSCRIPT (sources in footnotes):
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1UjEqffsxFvp_SwiVYqQzamsy1E2f0Ps7

TIMESTAMPS:
0:38 - Intro: The Question Everyone is Asking
2:41 - Section I: The System and its Purpose
6:50 - Section II: Power in America
11:55 - Section III: Money and Liberty
20:10 - Conclusion

CREATIVE COMMONS MUSIC ATTRIBUTIONS:
@ 0:23 - "Ambient Chill" by Aaron Chesney: https://soundcloud.com/aeonpsi/2014-05-27-ambient-chill
@ 2:40 - "UJO" & "BG5" by [JCM] CANADA: https://soundcloud.com/j_c_m
@ 11:56 - "Capsicum" by Sailfish Sound System: https://soundcloud.com/sailfishsoundsystem/capsicum
Credits - "Above All" by HOME: https://soundcloud.com/home-2001/home-before-the-night-05-above

OTHER MUSIC ATTRIBUTIONS:
"Money" by Pink Floyd

CORRECTION:
At 9:47 I say that the "top 1% pull in an average of $6,000,000 each year" - The 234,000 highest-income Americans averaging $6,000,000/yr actually compose the top 0.1%. I missed the decimal while reading the script; the transcript and visualizations refer to the correct information. See table 1 in the transcript for more detailed information about how I arrived at my numbers.