While that lasted all of about two weeks before everyone went home, many chose to focus on the continuing need to do something. It is the new favorite piece of political rhetoric — We must address the 1 percent.
Recently I read that within 20 years, the top 1 percent of the richest people in the world will have more accumulated wealth than the entire remaining 99 percent combined. I thought about this projection long and hard, concluding with these two thoughts – So what and who cares?
For those that do care about the 1 percent, it is a question of what is fair. In raising my children, I taught them that there are two four-letter “F” words they should never say. The first is commonly uttered in gangster movies and the other much more heinous vulgar F word is “fair.” I don’t let my children use that word because the world is not fair, nor was it ever meant to be, nor will it ever be, nor do we really want it to be. How boring would it be if everyone were rich and beautiful, tall and skinny, strong and bold. Our world is a wonderful place because of our many differences. Diversity is the spice of life.
I learned many years ago that my happiness comes from setting goals, working hard and achieving things on the merit of my God-given talents. I have had many successes; I have had many failures. Never did I sit back and blame “fairness” for my losses. No piece of legislation or court of law should try and make me a winner simply because someone else does it better. Injustice is a different matter which is why we have strong rule of law to help us when we are damaged by other’s actions.
Many of our government officials seem more focused on redistribution of wealth than improving the welfare of everyone by growing the economy. It is good politics and wins votes; but it will never work to actually improve the lives of us average Americans.
In the game of golf, I have average skills and many I play with are better, while others are worse. It is me against the course. If at the end of the round, I have shot a 90 while my brother shoots 80, I won’t feel better if someone makes us both get an 85.
The absurd discussions about the 1 percent must stop. First of all, anyone who has every studied statistics will tell you that for validity, you should always throw out the “outliers” — those who don’t fit the sample. These are the 1 percent on the rich side of wealth as well as the 1 percent of the poorest. Let’s focus on policies for the valid sample — the 95 percent in the middle.
Imagine if we used the 1 percent argument with regards to international measurements of height. Using the 1 percent argument, anyone under 6 foot 8 inches in height should be demanding some height redistribution from those 1 percent tallest people in the world. You see how ridiculous that sounds. I don’t care that some people are over 7 feet tall; it doesn’t impact my ability to achieve happiness.
Would I like to be wealthier? Of course, but I don’t feel better by making Richard Branson or Bill Gates have less. If you took 90 percent of their wealth away, comparatively I would still be poor.
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