Public policy over the last 30 years produced the wealth inequality we face as a nation today.
Bottom line: this reality is not sustainable for our national life, for community health or for peace and unity.
Reactions welcome.
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Truly shocking, even though I've seen it before. It looks more like the results of a monarchy, with the King being the top 1%, the nobility the top 10% and the bottom 50% serfs. (Actually, I doubt any absolute monarch ever captured 40% of his country's wealth. The nobles and merchants would have risen up to keep that from happening.) I do not believe this could happen on a level playing field, but only on one that is heavily tilted toward the wealthy.
It's not class warfare to want to see more of your neighbors succeed. There's something spiritually awry in this picture of our growing economic disparity.
Unfortunately, the article mentions government policies, but fails to mention which ones.
In the early nineties, Congress passed legislation mandating that public corporations disclose CEO and other officer compensation, in an attempt to slow the growth of that pay. The effect, has been that CEO pay has increased exponentially because individual pay in now easily compatible and easy to bench mark.
Over the same 30 years the government has increase spending on schools, Medicare, food stamps, student loans, anything and everything to help prop up the lower and middle classes. All it has done is make those people more dependent upon the government.
The obvious conclusion and remedy is not always right.
Why is it that one doesn't hear negative things about the Hollywood crowd and athletes who make millions, only the CEO's who actually run a company that makes goods and services that really benefit people?
4 comments:
Truly shocking, even though I've seen it before. It looks more like the results of a monarchy, with the King being the top 1%, the nobility the top 10% and the bottom 50% serfs. (Actually, I doubt any absolute monarch ever captured 40% of his country's wealth. The nobles and merchants would have risen up to keep that from happening.) I do not believe this could happen on a level playing field, but only on one that is heavily tilted toward the wealthy.
It's not class warfare to want to see more of your neighbors succeed. There's something spiritually awry in this picture of our growing economic disparity.
Unfortunately, the article mentions government policies, but fails to mention which ones.
In the early nineties, Congress passed legislation mandating that public corporations disclose CEO and other officer compensation, in an attempt to slow the growth of that pay. The effect, has been that CEO pay has increased exponentially because individual pay in now easily compatible and easy to bench mark.
Over the same 30 years the government has increase spending on schools, Medicare, food stamps, student loans, anything and everything to help prop up the lower and middle classes. All it has done is make those people more dependent upon the government.
The obvious conclusion and remedy is not always right.
Why is it that one doesn't hear negative things about the Hollywood crowd and athletes who make millions, only the CEO's who actually run a company that makes goods and services that really benefit people?
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