Wealth inequality in America

[Gregg]

What is our collective phobia about poor people? Why do we vilify the least among us? The amount of time & $$ spent making someone who needs our help beg, via forms that are often hard to decipher, is a system designed to fail.

As I've been thinking through this the word "investment" keeps coming up. I get up on a soapbox fairly often yelling about how we need to 'invest' in our infrastructure and how, if we do, it will pay handsome dividends for generations to come (just like the first round of that investment has). Why is it so hard for us to think of people that way? I'm not comparing a person to a highway, just saying that if we invest in people we will all receive a dividend later. Instead we stop our support as soon as basic survival needs are met. Even if you take the humanity completely out of the equation that still makes no sense. There basically isn't any hope that those people will ever be bale to turn their situation around and contribute (economically) back to society. The only possible explanation for this behavior, IMO, is that there is a motivation to keep this group dependent on the government. If that is correct then the questions become who is behind it and why?

[redfox]

I think it's a deeper cultural phenomenon than keeping folks dependent upon government, which is more effect than cause, IMO. The root causes seem subliminal, deeply rooted prejudices, like racism; illogical, fear based, unconcious. It's not the "there will always be the poor" myth, it's the degradation and vilification that is so repugnant, which indicates a deeper phobia and loathing. I simply do not understand it, yet I see it & hear it everywhere, all the time. I find it heartbreaking, that we treat the least of us as the worst.

I completely concur with the long term investment thinking! How many jobs could our government provide by diving into infrastructure renewal & rebuild? It is so needed, and so worth it.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Hmm, I would think the root cause would be there aren't enough good jobs to go around and there haven't been for decades if ever, and so even if we provided boatloads of training and social work and whatever for everyone to "rehabilitate" them and everyone wanted to work etc. etc., there still aren't enough good jobs to go around, end of story! And if you have such a social system, then what to do with those left out? Government help is one answer, starving on the streets another, criminality is one answer but the number of jobs for criminals may be limited too! Of course businesses in their employer role also benefit from high unemployment but that's an aside. Oh I don't mind funding training and college etc. (I've voted for it), but unlike many I don't believe that it changes the underlying reality re jobs.

[Lainey]

My parents did not have college degrees. They did not have special skills or training. They were able to find good corporate jobs with good wages, job security and excellent benefits. We did not lack for anything. They worked 9-5. Took vacations. Got pensions and did not even have to work more than 15 ywars to get them. They retired early. Never had to relocate or re-train in middle age.

That is an impossible scenario today. Workers are far more productive, work much harder and have far less of everything now. Yet we are constantly told that our financial insecurity is all our fault. That we made poor choices, are lazy, are greedy, envious, unwise. That it is somehow unfair and unjust to ask the people at the top to shoulder more of the burden for the commin good. That we are moochers and takers for wanting public policies that help us, like more funding for public education or avoiding the risk of bankruptcy due to medical costs.

Res ipsa loquitor. The income gap is just a system of economic policies that are geared to the elite.

+1 Well said, rosebud.

I think it was Fareed Zakariah who said that when he visited this country as a young man, he was taken to an American friend's house. He met the friend's parents, learned a little about their background, but he absolutely marveled at the fact that they had a decent middle-class home and supported the family with just a regular job. I'm paraphrasing what he said, but even in that short time since then, that same level of living now usually takes two incomes and that has had a drastic effect on our society.

[Kevin]

I saw this video clip for the first time today. A friend also shared with me another article I referenced in my blog post.

I'm coming at Simple Living from a slightly different view than some here. The political arguments aren't as relevant to me. Each system has its haves and have-nots. What's important to me is how am I living my life. If the stuff is preventing me form living well, living generously, or harming another I don't want it.

Here is my reflection after seeing the video.

The Rich Young Ruler - Who Me?

Does anyone have any links to resources that would help me further research exploitive practices by global mega corporations?

- Kevin

[bUU]

Hmm, I would think the root cause would be there aren't enough good jobs to go around and there haven't been for decades if ever, and so even if we provided boatloads of training and social work and whatever for everyone to "rehabilitate" them and everyone wanted to work etc. etc., there still aren't enough good jobs to go around, end of story!

It doesn't have to be. The remedy requires society as a whole changing what it means for a job to be "good" to something that is sustainable (and indeed that's going to result in changes to all jobs in society), and then fulfilling the obligation of making every job good.

Of course businesses in their employer role also benefit from high unemployment but that's an aside.

No, it isn't. Rewarding exploitation legitimizes it and works against society changing what it means for a job to be "good" to something that is sustainable.

[Rogar]

I completely concur with the long term investment thinking! How many jobs could our government provide by diving into infrastructure renewal & rebuild? It is so needed, and so worth it.

I have always thought the WPA was a great government project that provided employment, some on the job training, and infrastructure improvements. There are still many projects left in my area that display the WPA plaque. It probably was not perfect, but better than just an unemployment or welfare check with no return on investment.

I sort of doubt that something like it would fly these days. I suppose people would consider it a cog of big government and put it in the hands of the private sector through contracts.

[Aqua Blue]

something else I see is the lack of dignity in lower paying jobs. I don't think that used to be the case.

[Gregg]

I have always thought the WPA was a great government project that provided employment, some on the job training, and infrastructure improvements. There are still many projects left in my area that display the WPA plaque. It probably was not perfect, but better than just an unemployment or welfare check with no return on investment.

It's the same in our area and I think it could work today if enough pressure was put on political leaders to retool. Personally I'd be much happier with a bridge than a drone. But then my representatives already know that so it is obviously going to take a lot more than letter writing.

[Gregg]

It is important to understand the root causes of any problem we are trying to solve, but at the same time those roots might not be the best sales pitch to gather support. Take climate change for example. Most people who have been watching will agree that human activity is at least exacerbating a natural warming cycle, but trying to push legislation through based on melting ice caps immediately divides the voters, Congress, etc. The people who plead for us to rally to save the penguins may be great humanitarians and may be right, but they will remain notoriously underfunded.

OTOH, if you take a very simple approach of showing how reducing carbon emissions is better for all of us humans economically (more mpg = less $$$ for gas, etc.) then a lot more people will jump on the band wagon. It's not that people don't care about such things, they just care more about their own lives. My hunch is that its much the same with the poor. If we take the approach of showing people how it is hugely beneficial for society, and as a result for them, to help people out of poverty rather than hold them in it I bet a lot more folks would get behind the cause. If someone trades in the SUV for a hybrid because they want to save money on gas rather than save the planet, who cares? The net result is the same. If they support helping a million underprivileged kids get scholarships (example only) because they know those kids will be more likely to get 'good' jobs and pay more taxes adding money to the pool rather than drawing it out, but they don't really think about the tragedy of poverty, who cares? Either way it would be the poor who benefit.

IMO, the biggest hurdle for the good people who want to help is salesmanship. They tend to forget who it is that can help them do the most, the fastest. It may sound silly to some and shallow to others, but we have to ask whether the goal is to force people to realize their fallacies or to help the poor? If it is the latter then it is necessary to push the right buttons of the people who hold the power to initiate change. Show those people how it will benefit THEM and things will start to move pretty quickly because, almost inevitably, those are people who understand investment strategies.