The Rich get richer while the poor get poorer

I don’t have an economics or a policy overview blog here. I rarely if ever talk about economic and social policies: it’s boring to me. If you want a good economics blog, head over to Mauboussin Report, Calculated Risk and others.

The old statement about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, it’s true, however. And there’s nothing you or I can do about it. Or should. And it does not matter who is in charge, whether conservatives or liberals lead the nation, whether Trump stays on or we get a Democrat President next term.

The reasons behind this phenomena, whether it is momentum to blame for it, bureaucracies, they don’t interest me. You may have read through this recent Wall Street Journal article, Democrats’ Emerging Tax Idea: Look Beyond Income, Target Wealth as well as older articles, for example this one from the L.A. Times, Policies helping the rich get richer and the poor poorer, report says. Or better yet, read this book, The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter (1988).

Income inequality will widen in the coming years and decades.

I firmly believe in that trend, and again, it matters not who comes to govern and what policies they adopt. Good news, bad news ?

I was sitting at a bar recently sipping a drink, and I noticed the drink coaster: Is it better to be rich or stupid ? Interesting choice, I thought. So many people are both…these two are not exclusive…Well, I don’t envy “the rich”, at least those that I know who are richer that I they’re not smarter than me.

The same needs drive the rich and the poor. Well, to some extent. The poor don’t really do much virtue-signalling, perhaps because they worry about living paycheck-to-paycheck too much. Rich folk live for the next excitement, the next experience…what do I live for, I thought.

Same thing. Or better. Better be careful when I get advice from the rich…where they don’t have their livelihoods at stake. Note to self: the *rich* don’t think of themselves rich, they’re just out there making the world a better place. Sort of what I do.

Except I make myself a better man. Well, enough of this non-sense about the rich and the poor and let’s to the meat of it.

“Power isn’t just having choices. Power is being able to decide whether you must choose at all. You can have your husband and little family -and your lover in the tower. And you can extend your authority, and have your word obeyed.” – Edell Vrai

Star Wars: The Lost Tribe of the Sith

via GIPHY

Let’s ask these questions, then:

1. How much control do you have over your choices ?

2. Are your *choices* made by other people ?

3. How important are other people in your life ? (perhaps this question should have come before, at number two), and,

4. Out of your choices and decisions, how often you hit the bullseye, because if you don’t hit it often, you need to become a better shooter. (I refer here to bullseye as the right choice long term).

Now, that is something to work with.