DaveyD said:
Three of the nation's top newspapers have been examining the national myth recently. The Wall Street Journal has looked at social mobility. In recent decades, financial inequality has been increasing, not shrinking. That didn't matter, many said, because studies show a constant shuffling of the deck.
Walter Williams made a good point about this yesterday: with as much as is made of "financial inequality", not much is made of inequality of productivity.
Example: in my job I make decisions that affect millions of dollars in transactions. Should the McDonalds or Wal Mart employee, who affects hundreds of dollars in transactions, earn the same amount of money I do? To put it another way, would you want the McDonald's employee doing my job, or the Wal Mart employee flying the plane you are traveling to Pittsburgh in?
Certain people make more money because they are more productive. That's why the guy who runs the backhoe makes more money than the laborer who digs ditches with a hand shovel.
Less fun, but more telling, was a New York Times piece comparing three victims of heart attacks. The series has been especially good at capturing the subtle ways in which privilege manifests itself and gets transmitted over generations. It's not just money. It's not just IQ or education or blue blood or even good values. It's how all these combine into knowing which hospital to ask for when the ambulance arrives.
This is funny. As a heart patient myself, you generally go to the closest hospital with the facilities necessary to help you. Nobody - let me make this clear - NOBODY - knows enough to ask for a hospital with the best cath lab and team because people barely know what an angina attack feels like.
(Soapbox warning) Thanks to AIDS activists, we know all about how AIDS is transmitted, how to prevent it, who gets it, blah, blah, blah, but we don't know that a heart attack can feel like a toothache, a stomach ache, a stiff neck, a pain in the arm, wrist, and any number of symptoms that don't look like the images you see in the old movies where people having a heart attack clutch their chests and fall to the ground.
Yet it claims more lives than anything.(End soapbox warning)
The New York Times, as usual, is misleading their readers.
And President Bush wants to make Social Security more of an opportunity to do well and less of a guarantee against doing disastrously. In short, if insurance means shifting risks from individuals to society, what has been going on lately is the opposite: shifting risks from society back onto the individual.
Social Security is NOT insurance. I don't know exactly what it is other than a con, but there is no guarantee that you will ever get anything of what you paid into it back. Here's the way I look at it: who is mosre likely to have my best interests at heart, me, or "society". (When I say "society" read: the government.)
The answer is I am the one. The bottom line is this: the government is notional about what promises they keep and when they keep them. It doesn't matter who is in power at the time - if Democrats are in charge they will raise my taxes so they can tell me about all the good things they are doing for me. If Republicans are in charge they will cut my benefits because there really isna't enough money. We have known this for years, and I can't believe people have the nerve to act surprised about it now.
Politicians care about one thing: that's buying votes, and anybody who thinks the nanny state is going to take care of them is a fool. When the national mood changes they'll go with that.
Meanwhile, despite months of superb reporting by three great newspapers, the question of how closely our national reality resembles our national myth remains open.
The real question is does the reporting of these papers resemble reality.
Does it matter whether your place in life is determined by your IQ or your schooling or your parents' wallets all of which are beyond your control? As we learn more about the human mind, even qualities such as self-discipline seem to be a matter of genes, not grit.
(Soapbox warning)With some of the health problems I have had, I have the unique perspective of having nearly died. I laugh at the talk of "opportunity" on one hand by the same people who talk about "a woman's right to choose" and "the right to die".
What I am saying is that where there is no life, there is no hope, and the people who toss the unborn off as "parasitic tissue" or the like seem totally unwilling to extend the most basic "opportunity" to them - that is, another day to live. Yet, they want to talk about "financial inequality" (while ignoring productivity inequality) for political purposes.(End soapbox warning)
You only need one opportunity: another day to live. What you do with that determines your future. People who refuse to follow even the most basic laws of finance will always be poor, while people who do follow the rules will do well.
A couple of references:
Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki
The Richest Man In Babylon - George S. Clason
The Millionaire Next Door - Thomas Stanley and William Danko
