[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Your top down/bottom up is confusing here. Do you mean top being parents and bottom being children? If so, OF COURSE top down is more valid--the kids are usually not going to strive harder to secure the parents future, it's obviously usually the other way around. If you mean top being wealthy and bottom being poor--I said to secure the children's future is ONE . . .ONE . . .ONE of the greatest motivations to rise above subsistance level. In the case of poor vs wealthy, is that also not one of those motivations for both once they achieve subsistance level? And if it is "more valid" for the wealthy, a lot of things are more valid for the wealthy. Why bother to become more wealthy if it does no more for you than being poor? And if poor kids have less opportunity than wealthy kids, isn't that, exactly, one of the reasons to become wealthy? What is it that you wish here? Abolish wealth so that everyone has the same opportunity to gain it? Does that make sense?

Nobody, even Obama, is calling for the abolition of wealth. But doesn't that rich kid, even if he has a silver spoon in his mouth still have a far greater chance at success than the poor kid raised with a work ethic?

I think this question is relevant when thinking about what constitutes one's tribe. The implication here should be obvious.

It was a valid response of actual policy to your claiming that no-one ever called for a policy to remove the desire to rise above subsistence level. Your use of "on the backs of" is a trope used to invoke favor in an argument against the wealthy, or the "owners" and such. When it likens economic relationships in the free market between employees and employers to a slave like condition, that is not valid.

Trope, nice, I haven't heard that word used in a while

I often visualize pyramids when describing an organizational structure. You'd got to stand on the back of something or else the whole thing falls down...

One of the reasons to gain wealth is to secure the future of your children. You insist that such children are "lucky" to be born to such parents. Never mind that those parents, in most cases, had intended to have children, and in most cases worked intentionally to gain wealth, and in most cases they secured their childrens "better chance" at success with that wealth. Isn't that the point? Isn't that one of the reasons to acquire wealth? Are luck and intention equal? Perhaps the children born to poorer parents are benefitting from the "luck" that was fostered by the lesser talent, effort, inelligence, of their parents? What are we supposed to do, inject all babies with some equalizing chemical so that they all tap into luck equally by striving with the same intelligence and effort and thus all leaving all their children with equal opportunities?

How often are successful parents trying to capture wealth for their offspring also the result of wealthy parents to begin with?

Even my father commented about this over Christmas, how luck my son was to have access to computers and good education to give him a developmental edge. That on top of being smarter and better looking to begin with

Certainly one element that makes America different from most countries is that there are fewer cultural barriers to moving up...and this is a super positive for sure. But it's also undeniable that the top few % hold most of the wealth...and couldn't keep it if it were not for the efforts of everyone else.

Well, economics is about more than the relationship between capital and labor. It is about the total relaltionship between all elements in a society which include beliefs, attitudes, talents, intelligence, MOTIVATION, and everything you can think of. A harmonious relationship between all elements is a utopian desire that would end the necessisty to further evolve. Since that harmony is likely impossible, we do evolve. But those that wish to artificially create this utopia rather than letting it naturally evolve, wish to do so by equalizing conditions. In which case convections trickling up and/or down will be eliminated. If you wish to have your convectionist economy, then accept that there will be an up and a down, and the up will have more opportunity, this being the reason to strive to get up.

Just trying to keep things simple. My point is that without balance (oh god, here I go again) we could quickly reach an asymmetrical state that would be disasterous. Personally I think if you were to move too far towards a real free market system (regardless of federal or state regulatory allocation) the wealthy would eat up everything very rapidly. Certainly the inverse is also true...

There is work and there is work. Most business owners work more at their business than there employees. But we, somehow, don't look at their work as work.

The often cited statistic on executive pay as a % of worker pay is relevant here. Have CEO's become more important than those who actually product goods and services?

Good looking risotto. You have a lucky wife and children.

Thanks, I think it's important to take pleasure in the basics of living...like eating

-spence