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In reply to the discussion: STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 5 October 2012 [View all]Demeter
(85,373 posts)6. Why Let the Rich Hoard All the Toys? By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
TOYS? TOYS!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/opinion/kristof-why-let-the-rich-hoard-all-the-toys.html?_r=0
Imagine a kindergarten with 100 students, lavishly supplied with books, crayons and toys. Yet you gasp: one avaricious little boy is jealously guarding a mountain of toys for himself. A handful of other children are quietly playing with a few toys each, while 90 of the children are looking on forlornly empty-handed. The one greedy boy has hoarded more toys than all those 90 children put together!
Whats going on? you ask. Lets learn to share! One child shouldnt hog everything for himself!
The greedy little boy looks at you, indignant. Do you believe in redistribution? he asks suspiciously, his lips curling in contempt. I dont want to share. This is America!
And then he summons his private security firm and has you dragged off the premises. Well, maybe not, but you get the point. That kindergarten distribution is precisely what America looks like. Our wealth has become so skewed that the top 1 percent possesses a greater collective worth than the entire bottom 90 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. This inequality is a central challenge for the United States today and should be getting far more attention in this presidential campaign. A few snapshots:
The six heirs of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, own as much wealth as the bottom 100 million Americans.
In 2010, 93 percent of the gain in national income went to the top 1 percent.
Americas Gini coefficient, the classic measure of inequality, set a modern record last month the highest since the Great Depression.
This dismal ground is explored in an important and smart new book, The Price of Inequality, by Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton. Its a searing read.
We are paying a high price for our inequality an economic sys
tem that is less stable and less efficient, with less growth, Stiglitz warns.
As I see it, the best way to create a more equitable society wouldnt be Robin Hood-style redistribution, but a focus on inner-city and rural education including early childhood programs and job training. That approach would expand opportunity, even up the starting line, and chip away at cycles of poverty. If the cost means forcing tycoons to pay modestly higher taxes, so be it. The economy wouldnt suffer. After all, the United States enjoyed strong growth in the 1950s when we were a more egalitarian country, even though the top income tax rate in that decade was always more than 90 percent. Indeed, it was only in 1987 that the top income tax rate dropped below 50 percent in the United States. So the 15 percent rate that some tycoons pay because of the carried interest loophole is a recent, er, entitlement...
TOYS?
WHAT ABOUT FOOD? AND WTF WILL EDUCATION DO FOR KIDS WITH NO JOBS AND NO FUNCTIONAL PARENTS AND NO INCOME FOR DAILY LIVING?
NO, NICK. IT'S TOO LATE TO GO BACK TO THE 50'S. WE ARE GOING TO GO BACK TO 1917. OR FURTHER.
AND BOY, HAVE I FOUND A TOPIC FOR THE WEEKEND!
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