Let's start

[Pete F.]

"He" is not the problem, the fact that our current system has made it so that there is a greater and greater disparity is the problem. Extend the current trend and sooner or later our descendants will be serfs.
Here is how incomes have grown since 1982 by class
https://public.tableau.com/views/USI...play_count=yes

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

"He" is not the problem, the fact that our current system has made it so that there is a greater and greater disparity is the problem. Extend the current trend and sooner or later our descendants will be serfs.
Here is how incomes have grown since 1982 by class
https://public.tableau.com/views/USI...play_count=yes

Pete, stop switching and baiting. You keep going back and forth between income and wealth. After establishing that wealth was the important factor, you switch back here to income.

The chart you show here does not indicate that sooner or later, as you infer, our descendants will be serfs. All income levels grew, and most at substantial levels. That is not a trajectory heading toward serfdom. And we have safety nets for those who fall below the so-called poverty line. You consistently don't answer how income or wealth rates for the few growing at higher rates hurts those whose income grows at slower rates. You may be right, but if so, explain why.

Answer directly, in your own words, Jim's questions and examples instead of deflecting and switching.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

"He" is not the problem, the fact that our current system has made it so that there is a greater and greater disparity is the problem. Extend the current trend and sooner or later our descendants will be serfs.
Here is how incomes have grown since 1982 by class
https://public.tableau.com/views/USI...play_count=yes

"He" is not the problem".

Agreed!! His wealth is not causing poverty!!

"the fact that our current system has made it so that there is a greater and greater disparity is the problem"

Wrong. You, like most liberals, are focusing on the disparity. The disparity isn't the problem, the poverty BY ITSELF, is the problem.

Compare a poor person to someone who is barely middle class.
Compare the poor person to someone who is upper middle class.
Compare the poor person to Bill Gates.

Those 3 comparisons show 3 very different disparities. Is the plight of the poor person any different, amongst those 3 comparisons? No. Because the disparity doesn't matter, all that matters is that the person is poor.

You focus on "the disparity" because a pillar of liberalism is that poor people didn't cause their own poverty, rather they have been victimized - either by a rich white guy, or by "the system".

You admitted that my hypothetical guy isn't the problem. If he's not the problem, than the disparity between his wealth and the wealth of a poor person, also isn't the problem.

The disparity isn't the cause of anything. It's the symptom. It's symptomatic of a culture where far too many people can't, or won't, do what it takes to not be poor.

How many poor people have degrees in engineering, or nursing, or accounting, or physical therapy, or education? How many poor people work in a trade or manufacturing, and work as hard as they can?

Stay in school. Get at least a B- average. Don't sleep around and create babies you aren't ready for. Either go to college, or community college, and get a degree that will lead to a job (stay away from useless majors). If you can't go to college, learn a trade. Don't have children unless you are in a stable, committed marriage.

That right there, is a recipe for avoiding poverty. You can't tell me that less than 90% of the population is perfectly capable of following that formula. For people who can't (like the disabled), I am happy and proud to pay taxes to fund programs to make you comfortable.

But there's another group of poor people. People who could follow those rules, but chose not to. I feel much less of an obligation to deny my children things, in order to help people who refused to listen to their parents and their teachers.