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A Mockery of the "Barriers"

Let's debunk this income inequality garbage once and for all... Ask yourself, when you see/hear the stats suggesting that the top 20% of Americans are gaining, at the expense of everybody else, are you thinking that the top quintile, or 1% for that matter, is some elite fraternity that allows only a privileged few to join - that essentially sports the same members today as it did thirty years ago?

A Mockery of the "Barriers"

Let's debunk this income inequality garbage once and for all. Ask yourself, when you see/hear the stats suggesting that the top 20% of Americans are gaining, at the expense of everybody else, are you thinking that the top quintile, or 1% for that matter, is some elite fraternity that allows only a privileged few to join - that essentially sports the same members today as it did thirty years ago?

If you're thinking yes (in fact, if you're at all upset about the CBO's findings, you are indeed thinking yes), you couldn't be more wrong.

So let's disabuse you of that faulty notion. And I promise to move the content of this blog on to bigger and better things (maybe) going forward.

The fact of the matter is, in this great country, a great number of people move up and down the income ladder over time; per the following summarized results of a study (which covers only 7 years) from The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis:

*Of the households occupying the bottom 20% in 2001, 44% broke into the higher ranks by 2007.

*61% of the 2nd quintile moved either above or below.

*58% of the 3rd quintile moved either above or below.

*55% of the 4th quintile moved either above or below.

*34% of the highest 20% moved into a lower quintile.

And take note, there's no blaming/crediting the "great recession", since the data was compiled pre-2008.

Nobody says it better than Thomas Sowell:

Only by focusing on the income brackets, instead of the actual people moving between those brackets, have the intelligentsia been able to verbally create a “problem” for which a “solution” is necessary. They have created a powerful vision of “classes” with “disparities” and “inequities” in income, caused by “barriers” created by “society.” But the routine rise of millions of people out of the lowest quintile over time makes a mockery of the “barriers” assumed by many, if not most, of the intelligentsia.

Whose Wealth??

Sixty-six percent of participants in a New York Times/CBS News Poll say the country's wealth should be more evenly divided...

I assume the question read something like;

"Do you believe the country's wealth should be more evenly divided? Yes or No"

I doubt it read;

"Do you believe another citizen's wealth should be coercively reduced and divided amongst those who didn't produce it? Yes or No"

Do you think of your home, your bank account, your investments as the "country's wealth" or your own?

This is America, right?

Honestly, I am anything but a conspiracy theorist, but clearly there's a class war effort afoot the likes of which we haven't seen in a very long time (if ever)... What troubles me is I'm hearing it from folks I would have never dreamed would buy this garbage...

Inequality? Well Duh!

Man I'd love to have Michael Jordan's jump shot, Bill Gates' or Steve Jobs' brains, Jay Leno's wit or Muhamad Ali's left hook... Oh well, I suppose all men just aren't equally endowed... But boy am I thankful my country's system rewards individuals for their unequaled talents...

Please take a listen to NYU Law Professor Richard Epstein...

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The Voter's Ire

An excerpt from an email I received re; The Pie;

"I feel a connection to the 1%, and it has nothing to do with wealth.