Giga-Yachts, Flo Rida, and Bunkers. . . What Could Go Wrong?

Poor citizens observed rich ones at close quarters and trusted that they too would one day follow in their footsteps. They were not always wrong. A number of fortunes were made by people from humble backgrounds. However, exceptions did not make a rule. America still had an underclass. It was just that, unlike the poor of aristocratic societies, the

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What we have is a compounded problem, in which people with generational wealth pull the levers on a society that they don’t understand. Whether corporate policies or social welfare or college financial aid, nearly every aspect of society has been designed by people unfamiliar with not only the experience of living in poverty but the experience of l... See more

In a particularly illuminating study, the US public were asked how much of the total national wealth each 20% of the US population owned, from the poorest 20% to the wealthiest 20%. They were then asked how much each group should own in an ideal world. They guessed that the wealthiest 20% of Americans owned around 60% of national wealth, but that t

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