ks

                        JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER

The economic outlook is rosy, at least for people at the top of the ladder.

The number of U.S. millionaires rose 16 percent in 2009, according to a new report by Chicago-based research firm Spectrum Group. Some 7.8 million households had a net worth of more than $1 million, excluding the value of their home. Part of the reason is that higher-income households typically have more exposure to the stock market, and the S&P 500 has risen about 70 percent since hitting bottom on March 9 of last year. http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/109050/two-job-markets-

Grouch sent me this gem last week. It got me to thinking. I usually just fume while piling up manure in fields all the day; spouting my marxisms. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_zkMEgkI

I mean Rowan Wolf does not help me much:

A stack of $100 bills for the very top of the income spectrum would be 30 plus miles high. For those earning the median income of $40K, their stack of $100 bills is about 1.6 inches. I imagine that the world DOES look flat from 30 miles up. You also can't see the damage your shit is doing.

Courtesy of the L Curve explanation of income distribution in the  U.S.

Barth makes me ponder what might have been.

Miguel aint doin much to alleviate my angst either.

OKAY; I AM STILL FUMING WHILE PILING UP THIS MANURE CALLED A BLOG. So what?

So I take a few breaths and attempt to take a more definitional approach to the issue.

Props to CBS for this "60 Minutes" interview with "Liars Poker" author Michael Lewis about the Wall Street crash. Believe me when I say it's well worth reading the whole thing:

But none of that has changed the Wall Street bonus culture. Lewis says there is a sense of entitlement to outrageous compensation that he thinks is way out of proportion to its contribution to the U.S. economy.

"How did that happen that somebody thinks they're automatically worth millions of dollars a year?" Kroft asked.

"Well, when you're surrounded by a lot of other people who are being paid millions of dollars of year, you're not thinking, 'Oh, it's outrageous for someone to pay me millions of dollars a year.' You're thinking, 'It's outrageous that Jim got $500,000 more than me.' That they're looking to each other as reference points rather than to the larger society," Lewis explained...

"Again, what do you mean do they deserve it? They worked really hard. They spent a lot of hours in the office," Lewis said. "So you can't begrudge someone who starts a company and employs lots of people and so on and so forth for making a lot of money. I don't mind people making a lot of money. On Wall Street the business has become very obviously divorced from productivity, from productive enterprise."   http://crooksandliars.com/

What the hell do the words deserve, merit and earn mean exactly?

The IRS defines earned income as money earned by working either for someone else or for yourself.

Dictionary.com explains the term this way:

-noun

income from wages, salaries, fees, or the like, accruing from labor or services performed by the earner.

Compare unearned income.

Some others have expressed their thoughts on this subject.

Gandhi writes,

I cannot picture to myself a time when no man shall be richer than another. But I do picture a time when the rich will spurn to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor and the poor will cease to envy the rich. Even in a most perfect world, we shall fail to avoid inequalities, but we can and must avoid strife and bitterness.[5]

 

My ideal is equal distribution, but insofar as I can see, it is not to be realized. I therefore work for equitable distribution.[6]   http://bahai-library.com/books/gandhi/node69.html

The darkest hour in any man's life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it.
Horace Greeley

 

There is a gigantic difference between earning a great deal of money and being rich.
Marlene Dietrich

 

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.
Confucius

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec0XKhAHR5I

Just in case you start thinking that America is alone in its slide into the abyss of an economic oligarchy.

Iran's revolutionaries, having taken Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's promises of Islamic justice, prosperity, and democracy to heart, were looking forward to a bright future for themselves and their children.

"We want to make your material life comfortable but we will also make your spiritual life peaceful," Khomeini said in one of his first speeches upon returning to Iran from exile in 1979.

"You need spirituality; they took away our [spiritual values]. Don't only be content that we will build houses; we will provide water and electricity free of charge; we will make the use of public buses free of charge," he said. "But don't be content with that -- we will give you moral and spiritual greatness."

But he knows that his father, seeing how the gap between rich and poor has widened, now expresses regret, while Reza himself is left with frustration.

"In the past 30 years our country hasn't moved forward," Reza says. "The policies of [Iran's leaders] are harming Iranian people. They haven't done anything positive for the people -- they've only filled their own pockets."  http://www.rferl.org/content/Economic_Equality_Continues_To_Escape_Iranians/1379331.html

I would only state in this short post that we, Americans have not moved forward. The policies of our leaders are harming the American People. Little has been done that is positive for the American people. The corporations, the rich and many of our leaders have only taken the opportunity to fill their own pockets.