re: #63 Destro

That is because the untold truth (on the right at least which does all it can to deny it) is that to create new wealth you have to somehow take the wealth from those that all ready have it. You can’t generate new wealth in the USA out of thin air. It is an enclosed finite monetary system and trickle down does not work.

So those at the top of the ladder are deathly afraid of anything that will build wealth to those below the ladder because they know it will come from their inheritance which they are either hoarding or hiding overseas.

This is about as totally wrong as it gets. New wealth is generated every day, every time anybody does a day’s work. New wealth is generated every month, every time a new invention is patented, every time a new discovery is made, every time a new book is written. Every time a faster computer chip comes out, every time a better breed of rice becomes available.

Factories that produce stuff people want generate wealth. Workers who put up houses generate wealth. Wealth is destroyed, too, or consumed, but the overall trend is up.

The population of the U.S. is more than double what it was in my youth. People live longer. People have more “stuff”—-bigger houses, houses with AC and dishwashers and clothes washers and microwaves and flat screen color TVs. Most of that was not available to the upscale middle class back then, some of it not available anywhere at any price.

The cars are faster, safer, get twice the gas mileage, and they last longer. The minimum wage buys more than it did then.

The GINI index has crept upward and the rich hold a higher share of the national wealth than they did then. But after redistribution is taken into account, the poor consume a higher fraction than they did then.

In the middle, those who earn and produce it fare OK. Scientists, artists, inventors, etc. never have received anything like the value of their work, but they’ve received enough to enjoy a good life. Industrialists are a part of the production chain. The value of their efforts, like that of generals in war, becomes apparent mostly by looking at the wreckage of the bad jobs some do. But take Steve Jobs. However rich he got, he made the rest of us richer on a larger scale. And he didn’t inherit his wealth. He didn’t steal it. He came by it more or less honestly.

Ditto for those of us in the middle who contributed to our 401K’s for decades. Those savings aren’t stolen, and we came by them honestly.