Post by rmarks1 on May 2, 2019 0:28:40 GMT -5
Socialists like Bernie Sanders tell us that "the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer."
That's a lie.
Yes, rich people got absurdly rich. Last year, says Oxfam, "the wealth of the world's billionaires increased (by) $2.5 billion a day."
I say, so what?
The poor did not get poorer. Bernie's wrong about that. The poor are much better off.
"As we've increased the number of billionaires around the world, extreme poverty has shrunk," says former investment banker Carol Roth in my video about inequality.
She is right. Over the past 30 years, more than a billion people climbed out of extreme poverty. Thanks to capitalism, more than a billion people no longer struggle to survive on a few pennies a day.
Bernie is correct when he says that the wealth gap between rich and poor grew. In America over the last 40 years, the richest people got 200 percent richer, while poor Americans got just 32 percent richer. But again, so what?
Gaining 32 percent is a very good thing (all these numbers are adjusted for inflation).
Everyone's better off, despite the improvement not being even. It never is.
Now the myth:
The media claim in America there's "a lack of income mobility"—that people born poor are likely to stay poor.
Some do. It's true that people with rich parents have a big advantage. But it's a myth that Americans are locked into their economic class.
Economists at Harvard and Berkeley crunched the numbers and found most people born to the richest fifth of Americans fell out of that bracket within 20 years.
Likewise, most born to the poorest fifth climb to a higher quintile. Some make it all the way to the top.
In fact, says Roth, "3 out of 4 Americans will hit that top 20 percent at some point in their lifetime."
You see America's income mobility on the Forbes richest list. Most of the billionaires are self-made. They didn't inherit money. They created their wealth.
reason.com/2019/05/01/what-bernie-sanders-gets-wrong-about-capitalism/
That's a lie.
Yes, rich people got absurdly rich. Last year, says Oxfam, "the wealth of the world's billionaires increased (by) $2.5 billion a day."
I say, so what?
The poor did not get poorer. Bernie's wrong about that. The poor are much better off.
"As we've increased the number of billionaires around the world, extreme poverty has shrunk," says former investment banker Carol Roth in my video about inequality.
She is right. Over the past 30 years, more than a billion people climbed out of extreme poverty. Thanks to capitalism, more than a billion people no longer struggle to survive on a few pennies a day.
Bernie is correct when he says that the wealth gap between rich and poor grew. In America over the last 40 years, the richest people got 200 percent richer, while poor Americans got just 32 percent richer. But again, so what?
Gaining 32 percent is a very good thing (all these numbers are adjusted for inflation).
Everyone's better off, despite the improvement not being even. It never is.
Now the myth:
The media claim in America there's "a lack of income mobility"—that people born poor are likely to stay poor.
Some do. It's true that people with rich parents have a big advantage. But it's a myth that Americans are locked into their economic class.
Economists at Harvard and Berkeley crunched the numbers and found most people born to the richest fifth of Americans fell out of that bracket within 20 years.
Likewise, most born to the poorest fifth climb to a higher quintile. Some make it all the way to the top.
In fact, says Roth, "3 out of 4 Americans will hit that top 20 percent at some point in their lifetime."
You see America's income mobility on the Forbes richest list. Most of the billionaires are self-made. They didn't inherit money. They created their wealth.
reason.com/2019/05/01/what-bernie-sanders-gets-wrong-about-capitalism/
Bob
