Armando Montano
The Paw Print
The latest Faculty Lecture Wednesday night saw an unusual outcome for the evening lecture series. While the majority of those who attend are generally the faculty, staff and students for Adams State College, this last faculty lecture saw an overwhelmingly large population of the local community come out to see Dr. Ed Lyell’s presentation, “The economics of the 99 percent versus the 1 percent and the future of the Middle Class.”
For those who attended the presentation, the evening was a much fuller night than other faculty lectures, as in, with virtually every aspect of the event everything seemed much more abundant than normal. With the large swell in attendees, to the overwhelming content and the presentation offering massive amounts of quantifiable data, to even the extra time that the presentation and questions and answers portion took, this faculty lecture was surely a special event that all who attended were given much more than they expected.
Within the presentation, Lyell was able to address the concerns that economic structure in America is defunct; the continuation of the present system is built against the lower and middle classes and will not give any security for these classes as time goes on. With the changing of world powers and the development of other nations, the United States runs a high risk of being overwhelmed on the international stage.
Courtesy Photo: Dr. Ed Lyell gave a full faculty lecture on America's economics.
Lyell’s presentation showed that the future of the United States and the economic and social security Americans have in the United States, is under attack and is currently losing. From the observation of clear observable information and data, the attackers are those who are in the gross minority, the very top levels of economic prosperity that dominate the overall wealth in the US and by proxy, strong political, financial and social sway in American society. In the 90 minutes of Lyell’s presentation, the very real facts of this highest level of prospering businessmen, those in the varying top 1 percent of American upper class, showed how the drastic differences in the classes has evolved into a losing game for everyone else in the 99 percent.
The economic success of those within the 1 percent has come at a high cost to everyone underneath, draining the common worker of their strained efforts to gain higher profits without the seeing any rise in pay. The information in this presentation showed where these gaps in money flow between the classes ends up, as well as answer the seemingly unanswerable questions of how the deficit has grown so grotesque, where American economics is headed, major threats to American industry, as well as how the entire system is set up to fail.
As the presentation did paint a very real, honest and frightening examination of the current economic situation Lyell gave the audience hope, explaining the process in which a correction of the economic issues is possible and the prosperity for everyone across classes can be possible again. It was a very good presentation, highly informative and a great view of the issues that are truly impacting Americans.
The next and final Faculty lecture for the spring 2012 semester is set for April 25, with Assistant Professors of Teacher Education, Dr. Anicia Alvarez and Dr. Sheryl Ludwig presenting, “Cross Cultural Professional Development: Lessons from the Philippines.” All are welcome to attend, in Porter Hall at 7 p.m. For more information on the final faculty lecture, please feel free to contact Dr. Robert Astalos at 587-7821 or rjastalos@adams.edu
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