re: Is one major cause of wealth disparity a poor rate of return on social security?

quote:

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Wild tchoupitoulas, is it your assertion that disparity of wealth makes the poor worse off?

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My contention in this thread has been that increased wealth disparity is not primarily caused by the rate of return on social security as described in the OP, but is better explained by compensation of labor not keeping pace with inflation and/or investment decisions by the wealthy.

I have, for the most part, decidedly avoided putting any value judgment on the increasing wealth disparity and wanted to focus simply on the mechanism driving it - specifically to counter the assertion in the OP.

However, I am of the mind that in the long run it can lead to class strife. If the economic classes become extremely stratified, we could end up with a situation like Mexico. I do believe that the wealthy investment capitalists have been the main beneficiaries of the economic growth in the US and labor has lagged behind. The investment capitalist would find no problem with that because, as they see it, they take all the risk, therefore they should benefit from the returns. While I see that side of it, I think often times in this country we put too much emphasis on the investor and not enough on labor. We are constantly told that we wouldn't have jobs without capital investors, but what's left out is that we wouldn't have shite without labor. They are equally important in our system - it's just that everyone wants to be the owner of the waste management company, but no one wants to be the garbage man. You cannot have one without the other.