Missing the point...

Reader comment on: The New Yorker's Class Warfare

Submitted by Brant Williams (United States), Apr 11, 2011 16:56

For some it is envy...but that is not the underlying issue.

Those as the very top, are part of a financial sphere that has evolved over the last 30 years, and is utterly and completely dependent on one thing, and one thing only - massively expanding credit. On a sustainable basis, finance is only a support function of value added endeavors. In this environment of ever expanding credit, it has become a temporary profit center. Because we are so short sighted, we do not see it as transient, however. Congress, Wall Street, Academia...they are all guilty of the same sin...extrapolating unsustainable trends on the basis of a statistically insignificant sample. The game is nowhere close to over yet.

When the finance sector grows beyond the proportion required to support value added (construction, services, mfg, etc) in the presence of expanding credit, it becomes an institutionalized theft ring. Expand credit, bid up valuations, trade things back and forth, those in privelaged positions take their cut, esentially stealing a portion of the monetary stock, rinse, repeat.

The primary reason for income inequality is the same as it was in the late 20's....the unsustainable primacy of the financial sector, as sustained by easy credit. The difference is that in the 30's...the leveraged players were allowed to fail as they should. Today, we are sacraficing the country to save those who put us on the road to destruction.

For the most part, it is not out of envy that the lower upper despises the upper, it is because they recognize that the elites are sucking the life out of this country, while adding nothing of value.

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