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the gap between rich and poor, looking at either income or wealth, is greater today than 4-5 years ago.

Even if that were true, SO WHAT???? Are you one of those people who sees a fat person next to a thin person and automatically assumes the fat person stole food from the thin person?

CLICK ON THE GRAPH TO SEE A LARGER VERSION OF IT

"Never mind the low wages and harsh living conditions of the early years of capitalism. They were all that the national economies of the time could afford. Capitalism did not create poverty -- it inherited it. Compared to the centuries of precapitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the poor had ever had to survive. As proof -- the enormous growth of the European population during the nineteenth century, a growth of over 300 percent, as compared to the previous growth of something like 3 percent per century." -- Ayn Rand

And check out the chart on THIS page. Also see: "The Sweatshop Scam" HERE.

| THE FIXED QUANTITY OF WEALTH FALLACY | The fixed quantity of resources fallacy |
| THE FIXED QUANTITY OF RESOURCES FALLACY |

As Robert A. Heinlein said, "Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded -- here and there, now and then -- are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty."

In a modern open-market capitalist society, entrepreneurs get rich and the poor get better off as a result -- OF COURSE they're not going to get as rich as fast (duh). So, of course the gap thereby gets wider -- but the top AND BOTTOM of the gap both rise to levels much higher than before. The gap is widening?? Well, hooray for everyone’s sake! ESPECIALLY the poor!

If the rich weren’t free to "get ever richer," developing or investing in ever-increasing productivity, the poor would NEVER have any chance to improve their conditions at all, let alone to obtain their ever-increasing access to the latest tools of that expanding productivity, making every hour of their labor ever-more valuable. And YOU wouldn't EVER have the chance to read this or anything else brought to you by advanced technology.

Freedom incents the creators to empower YOU and as many other people in the world as possible. There's little an entrepreneur likes better than a bunch of ever-richer loyal customers. Remember, the wealth you see around you didn’t always exist; it was and is CREATED wherever the right CONDITIONS OF FREEDOM (including the rule of natural law evenly applied, with the rigorous protection of individual rights including property rights and respect for contracts, effective prosecution of the perpetrators of force and fraud, and the ease of engaging in trade without the interference or "permissions" of politicians and bureaucrats) are established and guaranteed._

Now recognize the true nature and scope of evil and wherein it really lies. And don't be too limp a wimp to to call viciousness viciousness even if all your friends and neighbors fawn like groupies over any mantle of global "compassion" in which the evil appears to be cloaked.

"Wealth is based on productivity, and productivity is expandable. In fact, productivity is fabulously expandable." -- P.J. O'Rourke in Eat the Rich

-- from THE GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR

Actually, when I see a fat person I think about genetics, diet, exercise, and lifestyle. And, growing wealth inequality is, in fact, true. So what is something we should be discussing. So what? My read of history is that the social, political, moral, and economic glue of societies becomes problematic as wealth inequality grows to historic levels. Sure, other things are at play--but this seems accurate in societies from ancient Greece to Depression era US.
So what? growing wealth inequality is one things when private family wealth is growing for all, even if the wealthier become even richer. However, it is quite another thing when families just putting together nesteggs for their own security and to move forward actually experience declining wealth while the wealthy grow wealthier. And, this is what is happening today. These are hard-working families who play by the rules who are eating their seed corn.
Lots of other so whats to raise in other discussions.