Hey, let's pick on Bill Gates! Did you know that he's now up to $90 billion in net worth? That's greater than the combined GNPs of all the countries of Central America, plus Jamaica, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Grenada. Gates' $49 billion one-year gain from 1998 to April 1999 (when he was briefly at $100 billion) is enough all by itself to bring every poor American up to the official poverty line. It could also--you'll love this--build a brand spanking new arena or stadium for every major league baseball, football, basketball, and hockey team in North America.

Since the mid-1970s, the top one percent of households have doubled their share of the national wealth. The top one percent now have more wealth than the bottom 95 percent--fully 40 percent of the nation's wealth. Meanwhile, the inflation-adjusted net worth of the median household fell from $54,600 in 1989 to $49,900 in 1997. Nearly one in five households have zero or negative net worth (greater debts than assets); as the "consumers of last resort," the entire global economy is now predicated on Americans' willingness to assume idiotic levels of debt in order to Buy More Stuff. Great economy, huh?--Geov Parrish

I have in my hands a very silly article from the P-I (6/29/99) that reports on the monthly U.S. savings rate as if it were a baseball game. It begins: "the nation's savings rate hit another all-time low in May as Americans' spending rose faster than their income." In March and April, the savings rate fell to a record minus 1 percent, but in May the savings rate hit a new milestone: minus 1.2 percent. The article calls this "a string of record lows this year." It also kinda sounds like a weather report. A few minor flurries before the big storm, maybe?--Maria Tomchick

Kudos to Peter Steinbrueck (who we've picked on in the past) for being the only city councilperson to ask why we need to spend $7 million on a replacement for the Seattle Center's flag pavilion instead of refurbishing it for $2 million or so. The upcoming Seattle Center and Opera House bond elections are doubtless full of those kind of little gifts to contractors; Seattle has long been in love with extravagant, big-ticket construction projects (convention centers, fine arts palaces, stadiums, and, coming soon, a replacement library and new civic center) as a trickle-down means of providing construction jobs--the payoff for labor's support of status quo politicians. Surprise, there's then no money left over for those annoying social programs. As an inevitable economic downturn hits, we may not have any kind of social safety net in place, but we'll have lots of really nice buildings to look at.--G.P.

Anyone see the P-I article last week about Seattle Public Library donors who have stopped donating to the library, because the downtown branch is being used by homeless people as a daytime hygiene center? I have to laugh. Seriously, it's a public library, okay? Get used to it. And if it were being used by all the homeless people in Seattle, you wouldn't be able to get in the door. And, don't forget, Seattle had an opportunity to build a downtown hygiene center a couple of years ago, but it was killed by the business establishment. It's a little late to start complaining now. But there is a solution: convert a few of those empty storefronts in the Pacific Place Mall into hygiene centers.--M.T.

Will calling in the FBI and using entrapment to catch dishonest cops be enough to reverse the sagging reputation of Chief Norm Stamper and the Seattle Police Department? In a word, no. The only way many folks will believe Seattle's bigoted, abusive, and/or corrupt cops--not all of them, but enough that it hurts--will be brought under control is if they have to answer to someone outside the fraternity of law enforcement. In other words, we need a civilian review board, and we need it now. We won't get it now, in part because the police officers' union contract prohibits it--an item that absolutely must be changed when the contract comes up for renewal. This is an issue that's been around for 40 years; platitudes aren't enough. We need accountability, and Stamper and his 12-point plan for burying misconduct haven't provided it.--G.P.

Speaking of construction projects, a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives approved $120 million for military construction projects in Washington state. We can't have light-rail, but we can have the following: $15.8 million to dredge the Puget Sound Navel Shipyard, $11.2 million for new hangers for cargo planes at McChord Air Force Base, $28 million for a fuel hydrant system at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, and an unspecified amount for "new facilities" to equip Trident nuclear submarines at Bangor with expensive new D-5 Trident II missiles. Quick!--Somebody tell me exactly who we're supposed to be afraid of this week. I can't remember, and all this money for useless projects is suddenly making me feel ill...--M.T.

Note: in the last issue we printed a review of the movie, "Limbo," but we forgot to add the author's name: John Chapman. Sorry, John!