Monday, December 07, 2015

Income Inequality in America

Today I read an article about the statistics of the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and how unfair it is. 

I am constantly amazed by the “conspiracy” pundits surrounding the “wealth” inequality in the US. The social engineering aristocracy that invented this “issue”(just like global cooling (1970's), global warming (1990's) and climate change (21 century)) and their socialist followers never consider that when one spends less than they earn, their wealth INCREASES! That is the bottom line. Literally!


The wealthy, even though they spend what may appear to the less wealthy as an exorbitant amount of money to live, are, as a group, spending less than they earn.  And this is NOT an illusion.  I know that the income my wife (MBA with a bunch of computer certifications) and I (less academically achieved with just a BS and a few certs) allows us to live comfortably in a large metropolitan suburb in Texas.  However, we also know that it won't go quite as far as it would in other suburban locales here.  That same income would not go NEARLY as far in Manhattan...or San Francisco.  So, besides some of the obvious reasons why we don't live in those places, too cold, taxes are ridiculous, way too politically correct for my tastes, etc, we choose NOT to live there. 


If you want to live in those places, that is your choice, but all things income wise being the same, you either have a lower standard of living or you make more money to maintain that standard.  If you spend more than you make, you get..... poorer! Spending less requires choices that may not be fun, and making more means, usually, new skills that may be difficult to master or simply working harder. However, since both choices are not, by definition, easy or fun, it is just written off as inequality and the pitchforks and torches come out.