Distribution of wealth in the USA

alj wrote:

The system works when we are close to the ideal.  When all of the wealth stays at the top, as in the last graph, rather than being put back into the economy, it stagnates..Those who would be creating jobs are struggling to survive.

But the natural instincts of the majority is to keep their wealth to themselves, be they millionaires or billionaires:

Shelagh wrote:

The National Lottery has created 3,000 millionaires in its time - dishing out over £8.5 billion. Some 15% of people start a new business with the money they win - while 9% go into business with a friend. Between them their businesses employ 3,195 people. That's £8.5 billion spent to create 3,195 jobs.

The difference between those who win the lottery and have unearned wealth, and those who earned their wealth, is in the enormous difference in job creation.

The educators and statistical information gatherers may have solutions that would actually work, if people didn't get in the way. We don't behave the way that we expect others to behave. If I have $1,000 that I don't want to share with others, it's no different to a billionaire not wanting to share his/her wealth. In fact, billionaires know how to make money, so they would argue that giving money away to people who do not know how to make money is not in the best interests of the nation.

And the lottery is often used to reinforce that position, since statistics show that most lottery winners are back in their original positions within a year or so of winning.   they do nothing to change things.  Those who inherit their wealth have not earned it either, and a few such families make up a large part of that 1%.  Altruism can only grow when the first stages of the pyramid have been reached.

There is a close similarity between Maslow's hierarchy and the eastern concept of chakras: the base or root chakra is about immediate survival; the second centers around the need to reproduce through sexual behavioe; the third is about gaining control over one's own territory, and it's place in the body is the stomach or gut, and it's goal is protection of the means for feeling secure.

The fourth is is the heart, and it is here where love and concern for others begins.  Then comes the throat, where one finds a voice, then the "third eye" where one gains insight, and the crown, where one recognizes the existence of a transcendent power.

The point with the chakras, too is that the needs of the lower centers need to be dealt with before one can move up to the next level.

Fear keeps people stuck at the third level.  Moving beyond fear into the ability to express love for others and concern for their welfare happens there, for those who can let go.

You posted one of my favorite little myths: the two wolves.  Recognizing and feeding the "good" wolf is what the higher chakras are about.

Just me

10/22/2013

                   I had a funny dream about the Obama Care, it woke me up at 6:00 AM,
                   Here goes.........

                                             Congress decides since the health care is so fouled up
                  they have to re-do it again, people were getting angry and shouting at them
                  " Revolution, off with their heads !"  so Congress was so terrified of the public
                  they decided to re-create it. AFter two months both sides decided to come up
                 with a 5,000 page Health Care Law titled:  " The People's Health Care Law-USA"
                 we'll to convince the American public this would be different each member of
                 Congress had to read a page from the new law , plus it had to be written in plain
                 English...Three months later the public was still waiting for them to finish reading
                 the new law..........Thank God it was a dream or their would have been a
                 revolution...

                                                                        Cheers..Joe...

alj wrote:

Those who inherit their wealth have not earned it either, and a few such families make up a large part of that 1%.  

We solved that problem with crippling death duties (currently 40 per cent of any sum over a tax-free band of £325,000). The landed gentry and aristocrats found it increasingly difficult to maintain their estates when death duties had to be paid. Many estates were divided up and the farms sold to the tenants. These days, the actual estates are bought by the nouveau riche such as rock stars e.g. The Halsdon Estate was in the Furse family from 1680 until 1983, when it was sold to Charles Watts, drummer of the Rolling Stones. Charlie and his wife Shirley raise Arabian horses on the estate:

10/22/2013

                            Yep ! Time for the democratic party to end....They've been around
                    too long , they don't know what century their in....

                                                        Cheers..Joe...