Friday, December 20, 2013

Wow - it has been awhile!

I guess, push come to shove, blogging isn't my thing these days.  There's just too much to do.

However, I recently read something that wasn't really meant for Wordcraft (though, I do plan to mention it as it is relevant for our "rich" vs. "wealthy" thread) and yet I don't like to get political on Facebook - yet I wanted to comment on it somewhere.  I remembered my Blog!  Here is a great quote from Ezra Klein:

Within the general rubric of "inequality," income inequality gets a whole lot more attention than wealth inequality. But wealth inequality is much more concentrated and, in various ways, much more dangerous for the social structure. In particular, it's wealth inequality that really ossifies social mobility.
The children of the top one percent only occasionally manage to match their parent's incomes. But they often receive massive inheritances that grow over time, installing them atop the economic ladder and giving them a political reason to fight like hell against progressive tax policies (the Walton family is a good example here). And this kind of inequality doesn't have any of the salutary benefits of income inequality: Massive inheritances don't make people work harder. They give them a reason to never work very hard at all, and to try to influence public policy so they never have to work hard in the future, either.
How true!  I have seen some of these wealthy families and oftentimes their kids, he is right, end up doing nothing but investing the "family" money.  They have "family" connections and therefore can often get legal protections of their wealth legislated.  It is disgusting, really.  Here is a link to the full article.