capital accumulation is how any person, city, region, or country becomes prosperous. The rich's greatest trick was convincing the poor the middle class were rich.
Yeah, I second that emotion. They're really interesting but time consuming to read. A few bolded points would help us get the point. LOL, I don't get why that's supposed to be surprising. It's not rocket science. But overtaxing the rich is wrong. While some inherit wealth, others work really hard to get where they're at and others are where they're at because of laziness and would be benefiting while not carrying their weight. That's oversimplifying and I'm sensitive to helping the poor but not everyone works as hard or is as responsible as others. Agreed, you described me to a T five years ago before I discovered you almost can't get ahead in this world without paying your dues. Rep'd.
This thread is just a smorgasbord of terrible reading comprehension. Between using an article about wealth inequity to b**** about millennial entitlement and attacking okierock (who in every subsequent post makes it clear he was being sarcastic) in order to disagree with the concept of wealth redistribution, I don't think anyone in this thread has read a damn thing. Neither da1 nor anyone on the left is arguing that lazy people (or more specifically, lazy and spoiled millennials) should be as financially successful as hard workers. Yet that's the strawman that keeps getting brought up. There is no evidence whatsoever that wealth inequality is the result of an increased sense of entitlement or laziness in young people. None. So just cut it out - the idiocy of youth (or anyone for that matter) is nothing new and is not the root problem here. The article nicely points out the fact that the wealth and money-management of one's parents (and the benefits that come with those 2 things) has a huge result on our future earning abilities. There are some people who are brilliant and tireless and yes, they will probably be very successful regardless of their social position (although the wealthy will still have a significant advantage). But the majority of us (which includes probably 99% of the self-proclaimed CC geniuses/supermen) are not brilliant and tireless and it's never been any different. We aren't cut out to be CEOs or Wall Street Tycoons or global entrepreneurs, but we are capable of being productive and self-sustaining members of society (whatever our profession). As long as the opportunities to fill these "middle" roles are equal, there are people from all economic backgrounds capable of filling them. But in the past 30 years, we've seen the means for less wealthy people to enter these middle roles dwindle. School tuition has risen 200-300%, non-degree positions (which a person could take in order to fund their education) are vanishing, and these middle career paths now frequently require time-consuming unpaid experience (internships, volunteer work, etc). As a result, it's mostly just the wealthy who can handle incur these costs without putting themselves into extreme debt. Some of you are clearly ok with this kind of society and I'll say this, at least you're honest. More troubling, though, is that some of you actually think that as long as everyone shares your "strong work ethic" (so you claim, though your posting stats make me wonder) , they can overcome the odds. But as the article shows, that's simply not the case. And I'm not ok with a country where the just-below-average son/daughter of a rich family has a better chance of success than the just-above-average son/daughter of a middle-to-lower class family. If my taxes have to go up to ensure the opportunities are more evenly distributed, then I'm fine with that because in 10 years, I'd rather have that just-above-average kid working in my department than that just-below-average.
