This weekend SPUR, a generally thoughtful organization, linked to a truly insane op-ed in the NY Daily News:
The top 10% of income earners owns 70% of the wealth in the United States. The wealthiest 1% have more stuff than 95% of the rest of us. This article suggests some remedies to this growing inequality, assuming you think it's a problem, of course.
No, as a matter of fact, I don't think I do. Interesting, sure. But a problem? Essentially what the article is saying is, "some people have more things than other people! Somebody do something!" But who? WHO can possibly do something?
Government
Oh.
has more than a right to confront the problem. It has an obligation to do so. ... The most direct way to address inequality is to reimpose higher income tax rates.
So, imagine you rescued a cat from a tree, and a little old lady was like, "oh thank you! Here's a reward," and she gives you twenty bucks, but then the cops come and take it and evenly divide it and dole it out in twenty-cent chunks to the hundred other kids in the neighborhood. Because they have an obligation to do so.
Frankly, in that position, I'd put the cat back up in the tree.
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