Interesting article in Vanity Fair about the inequality of wealth in the United States.

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105

I didn't read the whole article but it sounded like a thinly veiled plug for Socialism to me.

I read it after seeing the link. I think some good points were made. But I think the author is just plain wrong about some of the "facts" presented. For example, he asserts that we have not spent money on infrastructure. But the fact is we have spent enormous amounts. It was generally built by private companies. MCI for example was largely paid for the internet backbone infrastructure in expectation of making a profit. But they went bankrupt.

I also don't have a major issue with a little bit of a social safety net. But you're right, this guy just seems to be whining about taking my hard earned money and giving it to some lazy slob.

It starts off on the premise of inequality, but it offers no solutions and midway through basically turns into a political rant.

The most laughable part was when it compared the plight of the average american in the 1850s as being far better compared to the plight of the average american today. I think that was when it lost all credibility.

I mean, slavery still existed in 1850. A large portion of the population was still sustenance farmers. Those who werent farmers worked 70 hours a week in factories.

I couldn't force myself to read the whole thing. I couldn't get past his insistence that most Americans are becoming worse off every year, and I really couldn't disagree more with his apparent belief that wealth creation is a zero-sum game.

@Savarel
Also, women were kind of disenfranchised as well

The other thing is, what if, just by chance, and the all powerful normal distribution, a country were populated with a distribution of people ranging from lazy Slackers to industrious, Hardworkers.

Let's also assume for argument's sake, that hard work actually pays off.

Would not that situation naturally lead to an accumulation of wealth with the Hardworkers?

Obviously the situation is far more complex. But just because we observe a certain outcome or state of affairs, and just because we say that it COULD be caused by some kind of unfair oppression, that does not add any evidence whatsoever that the Hardworkers are to blame for the lopsided distribution of wealth in the US.

I am pretty sure that the US Gov't spent a ton on transportation infrastructure...Eisenhower?

Of course they did. The interstate highway system was built to facilitate military logistics for example. The government continues to fund highways too..

But there is a lot of privately funded infrastructure as well:

- power plants, dams, power lines and that kind of stuff funded by private companies with monopolies to supply power. They make these investments in exchange for guaranteed rates and protection from competition.

- airports funded from airline fees and landing fees

- research facilities built by various companies

- the internet and telecommunications backbone built by AT&T and MCI respectively as well as various cellular companies.

- Communications satellites built by various private firms.

There is no doubt that the government has spent money on infrastructure. But the US model is a little different from models used in other countries so comparisons are difficult. So much of our important infrastructure is was privately funded.

Silly Socialists. Even if we somehow distributed all the wealth equally, some pesky people will be so selfish to actually SAVE some of their earnings while others would spend it away. Then the savers would be wealthier than the consumers and it wouldn't be equal anymore. That would be most of the GRS readers.

You can't make everyone equal by handicapping the strong.

The problem sounds simple..if everybody saved and everybody had enough...
Though the problems as I see them are more basic..
1. The rich are not getting richer.....(well it is true from a certian point of view)
2.the poor are getting poorer compared to the rich(from a certian point of view)
Is some social programs neccessary ? yes unless you wish to creat work houses and prisons for the poor.
Some bussinesses will treat workers fairly and Unions are unneccessary. But many other's are not.
What's the worker to do in a world where the companies can pick and choose whom to hire ?
So again some social programs are needed. And whom will control them. Of course those whom those agencies would force to fix problems will not want those programs... it is a fact of life. We live in a free society but freedom was never meant you were free to abuse other's. Never was what our founding father's had in mind.
Do I begrudge a person from being wealthy?? No, but there are things they have done that while are within the law are in my mind actions that should never be done by any.
Good examples are the movie "Milago beanfield war" , Or the whole Enron event...
Please excuse my rant and my spelling.

Learn/develop a skill set that gives companies a reason to hire you. Are you suggesting the companies should be forced to hire workers don't provide any value to their business? So what happens when the company, no longer profitable due to being forced to hire workers that don't provide enough value to the company to offset their pay/benefits, goes out of business?

I'd be interested to know what, in your opinion, they had in mind.


I've not seen the Milago movie, so I can't speak to that, but Enron is not an example of something "within the law" but morally abhorrent. What was done there was illegal.

Well it might have been illegal..but most in general look for ways to make money at every turn....technically if I choose to run my power plant only when it is cheap for me and use energy from a different plant that I can use to charge more it call creative. In that industry it was illegal. Because they caught too much attention....
But my point is no different that the next wave of mortage failures coming is...
If you choose to default on a mortage even though you can can afford to pay. It is not illegal...It's just as wrong..but not illegal.

I wish this forum had an attached spell checker...
My point is that there will always be those whom work to bend the rules to their advantage and it will always be the rich whom benefit. If the banks get stuck with the next load of bad loans . We will be expected to bail them out again...

I don't see the tie-in between Enron and strategic defaults.

As for a spellchecker, most web browsers have them. I use firefox and sometimes chrome and both have them. Even my cell-phones web browser has one. I'm actually surprised there is still a web browser available without a spell checker. Try a search to see if your browser has one that just needs to be turned on, or if there is an add-on for it.

My point about enron and choosing to walk away from a home because it is underwater...
Is these are decisions based on minimizing or maxamizing return.
Just because they have a plant that might need work to be done on it choosing when to do it so they could charge more was the issue at it's heart.(Enron)
Walking away from a home by going through foreclosure.(getting to live there free for several months) and not pay the mort. That you actually can afford to pay even though the market today has dropped and your home's value today is 1/4 mil less. Is also just a business decision. Thought they are really at heart decision's of one's moral value's.
The law's concerning defaulting on mortage's were never intended for that purpose.
They were written with people whom could not afford to pay for what ever reason...not people who choose not to pay.
As to Enron what they did to my understanding also was not truly illegal....it was immoral though.
As for the real problem with the 1% and such..is capitalism is a lot like a game of monopoly . There is a winner and a loser. And the game has an end....when the money is all in 1 place the game is over.....
In the case of here in The USA Government is setup to lose because laws designed to level the playing field can be circumvented by the rich. If they choose to take their toys and go play someplace else they do.....