Economic Inequality

I'll have to take issue with Beagles in that this is not a regular eight year change of captains of the ship of state, Reagan to Clinton, to Bush to Obama, to say, Romney or even Cruz.  This is something totally different.  Education and expertise are no longer valued, there is an unreasoning rage across the land, the reps have abandoned any integrity to follow the mad yellow wave of judicial appointments and the elimination of any regulations that protected against the mad horsemen of big business.  And more than that it is the end of truth, the end of facts, the end of the light that could bring us to a better place.  If I had a tree in my backyard and I invited Mitt or even Ted to have a gander, they might have different views about whether or not it was a pretty tree, but they would admit there was a tree there.  Not so Donald, and if he brought along any of his yes men they would agree with whatever he said, and if they brought along an establishment Republican, they guy would chuckle and say that Trump was an unconventional candidate and avoid any mention of whether or not there was a tree. 

This is not the usual passage from summer to winter and back again, this is a passage into a biblical flood, a lake of fire, a skip into the orbit of Mercury or Neptune.

Well I do exaggerate of course, but I do want to make clear that there has heretofore been nothing within the course of events of this nation like what we are experiencing now.


Now on to economic inequality.  Let's use zero as the point where one person owns everything in the world and one for when everybody has the exact same amount of stuff.  I think, and correct me if I am wrong, that we are all appalled at the former and feel pretty good about  the latter.

I came across something in the newspaper the other day where you assume you are on the cusp of being born, of course you could be born into anybody, a rich man a poor man, a gay man, a black man, a woman, you have no choice in that whatever body becomes available after the soul ahead of you enters a body that's what you will be.  But, since this is a thought experiment, you get to choose,  You can choose a world where there is slavery or no slavery, racial problems or none, patriarchy or matriarchy, or approximate equality.  The idea is of course, that since there is a good chance you could be a slave you would select a world where there is no slavery.  Ideally you would pick an ideal world.  It's kind of an odd concept and maybe needs more analyzing.

But useful for this economic inequality discussion.  You are probably not going to want to be born into a world where only a few people have all the stuff because odds are that you will be one of the guys with nothing.  If we discover three golden bars outside the ivied halls wouldn't it be better, wouldn't it be fairer, if we each put one in our pockets than if if one of us took all three by force or deceit or whatever?

Of course all kinds of things happen in the world, some of us are smarter, some stronger, some better-looking, some luckier, and things are never going to be distributed equally, but it seems like we don't want them too unequal.  We don't want most people starving in the street while the lords are having a ball in their castle.  Maybe it would be better if the poor had hovels and gruel and the lords had pretty big castles.  Maybe it would be better still if the poor had adequate housing and meat once a week and the lords had only mansions.

All I am trying to do here is establish the notion that more economic equality is a good thing.  If the dawgs decide it isn't, there is no point in me finishing this diatribe.

But I will anyway so don't think you can just say that you don't believe economic equality is a good thing to get me to shut up for Chrissake because that is not going to happen.