Quote:
Originally Posted by graciegirl
The person in charge of wealth disparity is the person in charge of themselves. If you work hard and save, if you sacrifice and are careful, almost everyone can be financially comfortable, until someone comes into leadership who wants to spend your money for you.
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I don't mean to be impolite, but I have to speak up because I VEHEMENTLY disagree with what was written! The wealth gap is not an individual issue. It really has nothing (zero) to do with ANY individual. It is an economic term that AGGREGATES large numbers of people (say in the US) and compares (for example) the wealth of the lowest 5% of the US to the TOP 5% wealthiest Americans. What you are talking about is closer to the economic term of UPWARD MOBILITY than wealth disparity. They are certainly related but different animals in defining economic conditions. The wealth gap decreased after WW2 primarily as white families secured good UNION jobs in the north. Blacks increased economic strength somewhat in the 1960s under President Johnson's Civil Rights legislation. After about 1975 the average US worker's wages remained stagnate, when inflation is considered, for around 35 years until only recently. As the average US citizen's wealth remained stagnate for about 40 years, the upper 10% of US society made great gains. The perfect example of this is Jack Welsh of GE who made a salary of 350 MILLION dollars per year - no one short of God is worth that much per year - GE stock went nowhere under Welsh, incidentally! So, the US wealth gap today is the highest of ANY 1st world nation. Incidentally, during that same time in Japan, CEOs took pride in NEVER making more than 10 times what their average line workers made. Think about that! If the US was more like Japan, then here in TV Land each person would probably have 2 times the wealth that they now have. So basically, "greed is good" for only the upper end of American society.