Note the obsession with “gaps” and “shares.” Tax “rates” as opposed to taxes actually paid.

So, given the assumption that the current situation is intolerable, how do we fix it?

Who gets to decide what a “fair share” would be? What those percentages should be? How would this arbitrary “balance” be enforced? What level of government power over the private sector would be needed?

Should there be maximum wages? Maximum permissible assets and investment ownership?

How short should we cut the tall poppies? More importantly, who’s running the mower?

Be careful what you wish for.

Feel free to knock these charts down like ducks in a shooting gallery. You might have done it before but they keep popping up.

15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America

I know that wealth is not a staple to be divided equally but I’m beginning to wonder how our system really works. I also know that the people that caused the financial turmoil during these last 4 years are not the ones suffering.

Most of what they say is factually wrong. I’ve posted endless statistics on who gets wealthy in this country, and how. I’ve posted endless statistics on where the money comes from and where it goes. Refuted the premises, and busted the myths.

The powerhouse of this nation, and others, is people who have created a lot more wealth than they need. It is the fundamental source of investment capital, the largest chunk of consumer spending, and the source of almost all of what governments have in their treasuries.

You know I can back this up, or I wouldn’t put it down here.

The narrative is quite familiar, and very well rehearsed: the minions and propagandists of elitist Liberalism are indoctrinating our youth into forgetting their entrepreneurial birthright and their patriotic heritage, so they can enlist them into their nefarious nattering nabobbery of nihilist negativism. Its all part of the Conservative canon. I’ve been watching remakes of that same movie since grade school. And even back then I could see it was bullshit.

The idea is to intimidate everyone from even thinking anything remotely suspicious of the party line; to uncritically accept that if things aren’t working out for you, its because you’re either stupid or lazy, or its the fault of the Liberals who are stealing everything from you–unlike the people who have made it, who obviously are neither stupid nor lazy, and are anything but Liberal. In no way could it ever be possible that if things aren’t working out the way they should be that maybe, just maybe, the people who are benefitting most from the economy might just have some responsibility for why its running the way it is. That is not an unreasonable question to ask.

As for guessing what’s in a link without even reading it, is there any doubt in anyone’s mind what was going to be in that link, and who it was aimed at, and which side it was going to be on, and why it was posted? We get a constant stream of it here. It’s like the Viagara spam in my email.

I don’t have everything I want, but that really doesn’t bother me that much because I have everything I need. But all around me I see people who don’t have everything they need, and they don’t even have everything they’ve earned, and it is not always their fault. In fact, its rarely their fault.

I also see people who have everything they could possibly want or need and they still want more, they never seem to get enough. And in this country, with its riches and its history, and its hard-working people I know that’s just not right, and I want to know why and how it got that way, and why its only getting worse. And I want to know why so many voices are trying to tell me nothing is wrong, and that I don’t know what I’m talking about, and that I should just shut up. I really want to know. And I don’t think that’s too much to ask, either.

But I have to agree with him on your endless efforts to champion the wealthy. You’re playing for a team that would never include you on the roster.

The system should work as promised. Freedom and ambition should bring wealth to those who earnestly participate. But somehow we’ve gone from an eight-lane freeway to a two lane country road on the road trip to wealth.

The real issue which the poll does not address (in fact, it distracts us from it nicely) is whether we should have less rich people who are much richer. The real wealth redistribution is not taking from the rich to give to the poor. Its precisely the other way around; that the rich are getting richer, and the poor poorer, the former less numerous, and the latter more.

I don’t begrudge the rich, as long as they are not taking it from my pile. But I do see a shrinking middle class and a growing poor class, with a very tiny population of people richer than Pharaoh at the top. It is like Latin America, or America’s own Gilded Age. But we know how you feel about the Gilded Age, the Golden Age of free enterprise. But you do know how thin gilding is, don’t you?

What I can’t understand is how you don’t see yourself as a victim of this process. It has happened to you, as your opportunities to use your own talents to further yourself are diminished, and the very resources you had planned to advance your own financial position are increasingly being diverted to just maintaining your standard of living. I know exactly what is happening to you because it happened to me.

But I don’t blame the poor, they’re not the ones who are not hiring me. And I certainly don’t expect the rich to take care of me, either by charity or by enlightened policy.

Some threads have a life of their own. Others are like zombies, they just refuse to die. And still others are just reincarnations of past lives.

If the code “vanishes” again, the link is here:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/154619/Americans-Having-Rich-Class-Years-Ago.aspx