Reply #18: If there is resentment

[Prophet 451]

...I suspect it is because of the way many rich people earn their fortunes. Now, some rich people become rich perfectly honestly but there are far more whose money is made by exploitation and profiteering. One of the USA's earliest presidents (I think it was Jefferson) once said that anything proposed by the business class should be examined very closely as their interests were not the same as and were often contrary to, the interests of the general public. This is not to discount the free market system. The free market works well but the problem is that people cheat. Price-fixing and corruption are no longer the preserve of the Santa Fe Ring.

Example: On last year's Fortune 500 list, there were ten pharma companies. Those ten companies made more profit than the other 490 companies combined and that's profit, not turnover. That's from selling drugs to sick people (and Viagra to people who just want a little more bounce in their hard-on). The basic rule of economics as espoused by Henry Ford no longer applies. The new basic rule is that companies will employ as few people as they need for the work that needs doing at the lowest wages allowable, charging the highest price they can get away with.

All things are about class. The reason New Orleans drowned wasn't because of the colour of it's occupants, it was because of their economic class (and voting behaviour but that's another subject). Europe is a bit better. Here, while the average wage is not much better than the US, the tax structure means that very few are very rich and very few are very poor but in teh US, the tax structure has been tilted in suc a way that wealth and therefore, power (because money talks and politicians listen) has been concentrated in the top 2 or so percent. My favourite statistic ever is that around 80% of teh US considers itself middle class but about 60% are also earning below the avrage wage. This isn't rocket science or even Economic 101: The more money controlled by the people at the top, the less left for the people at the bottom. Money is a finite resource and while the paper wages of everyone might be up, when you adjust for inflation, the average US worker is earning between 4 and 15% less than they did fifty years ago (in the same time frame, productivity has boomed, see Greg Palast, Armed Madhouse). Where is the additional money going? You guessed it.

Yes, it is entirely possible to become rich honestly; by offering a better product at a better price, that was mainly how Henry Ford and his contempories became rich (which is not to offer support for Ford's batshit-insane racial theories) but the way the system is currently set up, it would be very difficult and very unlikely to do so now.