Rising Wealth Inequality: Should We Care?
Why do Americans seem unperturbed about the growing gap between the rich and the poor?
The Lottery Mentality
Chrystia Freeland March 23, 2011
Chrystia Freeland is the global editor-at-large at Thomson Reuters.
Americans are mistaken about income inequality because of national self-confidence and the lottery effect.
Americans actually live in Russia, although they think they live in Sweden. And they would like to live on a kibbutz. This isn't the set-up for some sort of politically incorrect Catskills stand-up joke circa 1960. It is the takeaway from a remarkable study by Michael Norton and Dan Ariely on how Americans think about income inequality.
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My comments...
I believe we need a national debate on the impact of rising income inequality and wealth inequality in America. Sadly, we won't, until there are tent cities in every major metropolitan area, and until the homeless march on Washington, D.C.
I suspect Pres. Obama started the national debate in his address this morning. I expect that in the coming weeks and months we will hear a lot more about the dangers of a two-class America with a small, super-rich oligarchy and a large underclass of property-less poor. Don't expect the rich and powerful to give up either financial or political power, however.
TheNewGildedAge.blogspot.com This blog focuses on the growing inequality of income and wealth in the U.S. As Warren Buffett said in 2008: “There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.”
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