ratbastid

I'm not going to respond directly to that lovely narrative of an op-ed, as it's basically a single anecdotal, emotional data point and can't be sensibly used to draw policy conclusions from.

My assessment of the wealth disparity in this country is that it's rarely a matter of ambition or hard work, outside the conservative world-fantasy. Some of the poorest people I know work multiple jobs to make ends meet. I know immigrants (yes, some of them illegal) who work harder than you or I can probably imagine.

The issue isn't laziness, it's opportunity. Most of the wealth in this country (and by most, I don't mean 51%) is concentrated at the very tippy top. Lots of people think of themselves as privileged, doing well, upper class, but the fact is, compared to the holders of like 90% of the wealth in this country, they're paupers. One of the real problems with middle-class conservatives is, they think they're the rich ones who conservative policies will take care of, when they're really the poor ones that conservative policies will screw. It's a massive con-job perpetrated from the top socio-economic strata.

With the vast wealth imbalance, certain people from certain classes can be, say, President of the United States of America, and it doesn't take smarts or a background of success or raw talent. It takes a daddy who did that. Whereas my friend Jerman, whose parents are from Venezuela, couldn't ever rise to that level no matter how skilled and brilliant he is (and he IS). Part of that is racial, but the much bigger part (as Obama is currently demonstrating) is socio-economic. I'm not convinced the two can be separated as American culture is currently constituted.

The failure of trickle-down economics should be obvious. How the wealthy GOT wealthy in the first place was by NOT letting their wealth trickle down. And when I say wealthy, I'm talking about the top 5%. And (with some anecdotal exceptions, I'm sure) most of that is legacy wealth. Money that's been around for multiple generations, growing in banks and in the market, without any particular effort or ambition on the part of its owners. Paris Hilton is vastly more typical than Bill Gates.

So, these perambulations aside: I'm not sure we have a moral imperative to redistribute the wealth per se. I'm not real interested in that. I'm REAL interested in making sure people are taken care of and have everything they need. And if money to make that happen has to come from the cash that somebody was going to spend on their eighth house, I'm not going to cry too hard about it.

My question for you, mcgeedo, is: do you believe that "equal opportunity", as you claim to believe in, currently exists? If not, what do you think ought to be done about that?