Wealth inequality in America

http://mashable.com/2013/03/02/wealth-inequality/

The saddest part for me is that I have labored under the myth of hard work gets one ahead. It's simply not true. Being born into wealth is the best way to be wealthy.

Of course, being born into wealth is a pretty good way to be wealthy, but it's certainly not the only way.

Personally, I've found that getting ahead is not so hard to do over the course of a lifetime if you work at it. I've also found it to be self-defeating to think in terms of wealth inequality, and empowering to focus on gradual improvement. If I focus on who has more than me I'll probably be unhappy and yet if I focus on how far I've come, I consider myself blessed.

Perspective is everything.

I heard of an "economy" kind of game played in some classrooms but the name escapes me. The interesting thing about it is that at some in the game those winning get to start altering the rules. An interesting side effect is those on top really get intense about playing but the ones underneath tend to lose all interest. Which may not sound fair for a game but it certainly sounds closer to reality.

Since I'm not in the wage earning work force, I suppose talk is easy. But even with the loss of middle class jobs to automation and overseas I don't think advancing into the ranks of middle or upper class is all that difficult for most. It is more than working hard, but choosing job skills that are in demand and retooling for a changing work environment. There are obviously some who get dealt a bad deal in life and struggle to prosper regardless. The few uber-rich I met in my day worked extremely hard, had excellent organizational skills, and could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo. I would not want the burden of their work life or their rewards.

Then again, I consider "The Great Gatsby" as the great American novel of wealth and am occasionally reminded of the opening lines...In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

There will always been some folks who think they're going to strike it rich and that's what's going to save them. Look at all the people who spend lots of money on the lottery or think a crazy business venture is going to do the trick.

On the contrary, it's getting an education and/or learning a trade, working hard, and living within your means.

My motto is "Work smarter, not harder."

When I realized that others with a similar income as me seemed to be managing their money better. I knew I had to get smarter with what I was earning. Will I ever be rich? Not likely, but then I have so much of what makes me happy already that more money is unlikely to make me happier.

There has always been a disparity between rich & poor in the world, I just don't see that changing in my lifetime.

Here's another good fact sheet (though I wish they'd update it; it's almost two years old now).

Wealth Inequality

I think there are always going to anecdotes about people who beat the odds and make out well, just like there are always going to be anecdotes about people who under-perform reasonable expectations, but the real story here with wealth inequality is the long-term overall trend. It cannot help but increase the odds against working one's way out of poverty, and making the current lack of financial independence more of a barrier to future financial independence. So while it is true that there will always be rich and poor in the world, is it a good thing that we're now very clearly on the backside of the hill, descending from the peak of wealth equality? Does anyone know of a reasonable justification for what is effectively an economic offensive against those less fortunate?

The power in the data for me is not at the individual level, though it is grimly good to have the data confirm my own experience of pedaling fast and going backwards. The value is in driving public policy.

Our society does better when everyone does better. The trajectory we have been on as a society is the anti-model. It's beyond time to reverse this trend, with distribution of wealth approaching the Robber Baron era. It is time to redistribute wealth by governmental policies.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by redfox

It is time to redistribute wealth by governmental policies.

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I tend to agree, but cannot conceive of a fair way to do this. Heavy taxation doesn't seem like the answer, at least to me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by redfox

It is time to redistribute wealth by governmental policies.

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Probably no surprise that I'm going to disagree with that redfox. There is a big difference between making wealth achievement easy and making it possible. Redistribution implies making it easy (but please feel free to rebut if you have a different thought in mind). Opportunity implies making it possible. There will always be those who gain wealth and power as a birthright, no policy will change that. What we should really be concerned with is making sure anyone who didn't inherit that has a chance to achieve it on their own. Btw, that should be true for any dream, not just wealth in the monetary sense. Anyway, wealth is not static, not zero sum. We can create as much as we want to. Rather than taking from one to give to another why not just help the ones who don’t have it generate more? In any structure I’m familiar with it is always more practical to reinforce the bottom rather than tear off the top. If you redistribute the opportunity the wealth will quickly follow without anyone having to be penalized because their achievement came before the rules changed.


ETA: Redistributing opportunity is fairly easy needn't be painful to do using public policy. It would boil down to redistributing money in the budget. For example only, but you could take 5% of the DOD budget and apply that to aid for the bottom 5% of high schools in the country. That kind of redistribution I could get behind. I think most people could.