Osler's Razor

The New York Times is featuring (along with the awesome photo above) an intriguing piece from Thomas Friedman titled Made in the USA: Socialism for the Rich. Capitalism for the Rest. 

Friedman notes that in the last three decades, the wealth of the top 10% in the US has tripled, while it has remained flat for the bottom 50%-- that is, the people most likely to rely on work rather than investments (including home ownership) for their accumulation of wealth.  Not unrelatedly, that top 10% owns 80% of the stocks.

In short, government policy has been geared to protecting the stock market from devaluation, while failing to protect the rest of the economy from job loss, wage stagnation, and other ills. And... the protection of markets rather than people has also driven up the national debt.

It's no coincidence that most of those who make decisions about these things are not only lifetime residents of that top 10%, but they overwhelmingly come from businesses that make their money off markets.

There is a deeper rot to all this, too. Consistently, American politicians say that they value work, and just as consistently reward ways of making money that involve little to know actual work. That's led us to some skewed values-- including the popularity of the super-rich that has risen to the level of seeing almost super-human powers in their wealth. 

I live mostly among the relatively affluent in America. And I know, very well, that they are not working harder than the people who make their food.

The truth is, there is more to admire in the man who walks high steel and builds a skyscraper than there is in the person who just makes money off ownership of that property-- but our built-in systems of reward run the opposite way. That's not just a societal problem, but a spiritual one. And it will catch up with us. 

# posted by Mark Osler @ 1:00 AM