Nobody Wins Unless Everyone Wins

"There's something really dangerous happening to us out there. We're slowly getting split up into two different Americas. Things are getting taken away from people that need them and given to people that don't need them, and there's a promise getting broken. In the beginning, the idea was that we all live here a little bit like a family, where the strong can help the weak ones, the rich can help the poor ones. I don't think the American dream was that everybody was going to make it or that everybody was going to make a billion dollars. But it was that everybody was going to have an opportunity and the chance to live a life with some decency and some dignity and a chance for some self respect."

That was Bruce Springsteen, speaking from a stage in Pittsburgh in 1984. Not much has changed. Things got better and then got worse.

Here's a New York Times discussion about how people think (or don't) about the wealth disparity. I find the comments particularly interesting. People get so self-righteous about the working poor.

To me, you don't have to be a bleeding heart to think it's bad that so few people hold so much of the nation's money (and its power and influence and likely an out-sized proportion of its diamond-encrusted tweezers). I mean, doesn't it make sense that a better distribution of wealth would make rich people's fortunes more secure? Poverty and a growing animus toward the filthy rich creates crime, violence and some really horrible television shows. A more equitable society is a more stable society. People with more money have more to lose. Maybe they should pay more for that security? For the same reason it costs more to insure a $1 million house than one worth $50,000.

So how about it, all you shrugging Atlases. Maybe if you see yourself as part of the solution for a better functioning society, you can rest a little easier knowing a spiteful stable boy won't try to jam a Waterford candlestick up your Brazilian Sport Horse's ass.