If we want to get crime under control and restore social cohesion to our society, we must also tackle inequality - and that means taxing the morbidly rich
Woody Guthrie Quote: " Just because I ain't got as much money as you got is a pretty good sign that you're crookeder than me. And it ain't to laugh about. It makes me do some pretty tall thinking how to get that money off of you and give it back to the folks that's broke. "
Thom -- Reading even a brief overview summary of your early trajectory is enlightening, thought provoking, terrifying, humbling . . . and exhausting. Thanks.
Pugnacious, extreme, and true is often a good place to start negotiating.
Households are the most important, the most numerous, and the most fundamental corporate entities in our country, from one productive perspective.
I just want my household to be taxed like a corporation.
Revenue comes in, we deduct fair and reasonably expenses, and our overlapping communities can tax what's left. [ household revenue is not income . . . for starters . . . and someday I hope to understand how personal income, according to the Fed, just about equals GDP . . . mind bending ]
Of course, if we really did tax households like corporations -- thanks SCOTUS! -- only rich people would pay much in taxes, while spending massively to change the definitions of 'fair' and 'reasonable,' for starters, no doubt.
If we pay a working family a dollar, a rich guy gets it almost immediately.
So rich guys should be spending almost all of their time working to get dollars to households.
That's not what I'm seeing, in the main, so it's up to us, I'm guessing.
Sep 30, 2022·edited Sep 30, 2022Liked by Thom Hartmann
Inequity is a logical cause for much of the crime, stress, and tension we are suffering. Simply put, the resentment and acting on it are human nature.
The problem is the morbidly rich, but we are absolutely obsessed with them. Their lifestyles and toys are endlessly fascinating. We as a society need to get OVER that, and I do see some change taking place.
Accepting the aftermath of the pandemic and the derangement the Trump years have caused would be the adult thing to do. Finding remedies is the right thing to do. Teaching others to help not hurt is the hard thing to do.
Morbidly rich is perfect. It doesn’t just apply to the rich person him- or herself, but also as a perception of anyone observing the rich person. ‘Morbid’ and ‘morbidly’ can be used in a number of descriptive ways. A story or a scene can be morbid, a remark or expression can be made morbidly, etc. We desperately need this phrase and others like it to counter the ongoing avalanche of radical-right deprecatory rhetoric the bad guys work so hard to keep fresh and new!
There's something about the phrase "morbidly rich" that bothers me. Yes, great wealth does sap those who possess it, but its lethally toxic effects on those who don't possess it is the far greater societal problem.
Hum, very good point, though I like the phrase because it does accurately describe many of these folks. They aren't horrible people, just mentally ill.
So, what word describes morbidity that in contagious, or infectious? Let's give Thom a better bumper sticker. Not me, I can't think of one, but hey, you brought it up, maybe you have a better word. I'm all ears, well mostly ears, Stephanie Miller is on in the background.
How about "malignantly wealthy sociopaths" because their avarice is the root cause of the grievances that have metastasized America into a backsliding democracy (and they just don't care)?
I'd argue they aren't the root cause, the inverted tax code is really to blame, but yes, they would be the root cause if they could.
Malignant sort of misses for me, but wealthy sociopath absolutely nails it.
Maybe morbidly wealthy SOCIOPATH. It fits in the same area. Instead of saying "the morbidly rich did XYZ", we say "morbidly wealthy sociopaths did XYZ"
Yeah, your phrase explains both the cause and the disease.
You get five gold stars and an extra cookie for nap time (the one thing about getting old is I really loved nap time). Thanks.
After just getting up from my nap, I'd argue that wealthy sociopaths decided to invert the tax code and made it law because they had already arranged for the Supreme Court to make money equal to speech and corporations into citizens thus creating the powers of corporate personhood. The people who created and exploit those powers are the root cause, and the tax code is just one of their evil spawn. And the more that I think about it, "morbidly rich" makes the point and is half the syllables so Thom has been right all along.
Well, can't argue with any of that, but even half the syllables, in the USA we need to say "rich bad" or they won't be able to understand. How many Americans could define "morbidly". They might get "morbid". Rich bad, ugh ugh, even though the actual problem is 1% of the 1%, not the 1%
Stabilizer, I reread my reply to you and I have to agree that your observation about the root cause being tax code changes preceded the powers of corporate personhood as we know them today, but the decisions that caused the inversion of the tax code were still made by wealthy sociopaths.
Lately, I decided to make a point to politicians BEGGING FOR MONEY. From me - a person living on Social Security alone. I spent all of my two pensions paying medical bills - even with Medicare and a MediGap. Do NOT get seriously ill in the United States! SO, several senators have been begging for money from me for months! I looked up the current annual salary for US Senators - it's an alarming $174,000. But actually that's just considered in the middle class range.
Just recently I heard from one of my Dem senators, Senator Michael Bennet whining about a Trumpist getting a super PAC of a few million bucks, and asking ME for a donation.
I wrote him back (instead of stewing) and told him I knew how much his Senate salary was, and that he should be embarrassed asking for money for me, who makes $14K/year.
He wrote me back this morning - "I'm opting you out of texts immediately. Have a great day." And I thanked him, told him he was doing a great job AND I was voting for him.
I don't think this is off-topic. Because if my family had been one of those morbidly rich ones, I would be likely "just fine." But I'm NOT! And I hope I started to spread the word to these other politicians! - Alive in Denver
Thom, you are, and have been, living an extraordinary life... and we all are the happy beneficiaries of your experience.
Inequality is a problem. Weird isn't it, that humans have a strong instinct for Fairness, and yet a stronger instinct for Greed? And THAT is precisely why we need Laws and Corporate Regulations.
This has the ring of truth. Inequality stinks -- and the scent is everywhere, corrupting our social interactions. While publications like the NY Post gin up every crime that happens in NYC, they imply that street crime is caused by the sick, the insane, and the just plain incorrigible. It doesn't recognize the truth you are putting forward -- that in an unequal society, resentments spin out of control, and the social cohesion that would prevent violence gutters out like a candle without oxygen.
You shouldn’t even have to go into such detail to justify taxation for the morbidly rich. Kind of a joke that Elizabeth Warren asked about whatever that number was, like 2 percent. Ha ha ha. I’d say we even should outlaw billionaires, where no one needs more than $100M or so. HOWEVER, what I want to contribute is that social cohesion wouldn’t “just mean” taxing the rich. Let’s hear it for Universal Basic Income. Soon enough there won’t be enough jobs thanks to automation and we will have to have something like that, but we are just timidly doing little experiments instead of using that big-time as a way, along with those taxes, to change the game.
Thanks Suzanne for the focus on the need for universal basic income. . . and how affordable.
The nature of work is a huge topic, but it doesn't seem to me that there will be too little. ( speaking as an unemployed guy on Medicare with 2 fancy engineering degrees and a fairly recent US patent law registration . . . looking for good work for 3 years running now . . . how can that be? I can't guarantee you, but algorithms and excruciatingly young recruiters know I'm over 45, would be where I would start . . . )
We saw the stabilizing power of payments for children in the pandemic. But Rs voted against. Big source of current unrest in my mind, not anywhere near as bad as most of that detailed by Thom above, but easily fixable. And that, in a nut, is what Rs do not want.
My approach / view is that we each have exactly one vote in this great federal enterprise, the United States -- *only* if we can keep it -- and that means we have exactly one share in that same all-encompassing enterprise. The USA controls all business public and private within its jurisdiction, and in a fundamental accounting sense, that means that We the People own everything. Everything.
We are not getting our dividends.
Net household wealth in the USA increased approximately $70 Trillion ( with a T ) in the past 10 years. Thom has cited a $50 Trillion transfer. Overwhelming. Overlapping? Probably.
National debt increased about $12 Trillion in the same period. Mostly bad debt, corrupt, pushed on us by those who can easily afford it, and their slavering demented lackeys. ( not fair? Yes, I was too nice . . . )
The top 10% own about $45 Trillion, net wealth. Net. So 2% on that amount would generate about $900 Billion, almost a Trillion dollars a year. The excellent Senator Warren has been remiss, very unlike her in my book, in never citing just how much the wealthy control. She talks about taxing those over $50 million; it takes about $13 million to get into the top 1%, for a total of $17 Trillion, and I recall that Senator Warren was proposing to generate about $200 Billion a year. It takes about $1.5 million, net, to get into the top 10%; many of those are simply working class retirees from the old days, who have IRAs and a house. How the Fed accounts for the estimated capital values of pensions and Social Security and Medicare is still a mystery to me, I'm betting they don't, big hole.
[ notes $136 T, 2022 Q2; $65 T, 2012 Q2; -> ++ $70 T 10 years, - $6 T last Q ( boo who ? ) ]
[ note! bottom 50 keeps increasing, if ridiculously small fraction . . . put $2 T there, happiness! ]
We are the board of directors of the boards of directors.
We are not properly exercising our rights nor our responsibilities in that regard, clearly, and that also shows the need for republican ( small r ) operation of our sprawling and rich ( small d ) democracy. [ every group is a democracy -- some just do it a damn sight better than others ]
It's always Opposite Day in the self-destructive camp we are struggling with, so I'm sure you can hear the cries of 'socialism!'
It's not socialist to own and vote a share of an enterprise. It's profoundly capitalist. Neither word is particularly controlling or useful in the conduct of a prosperous modern society that has both shared ownership and shared responsibility built right into its constitution, laws, and history, in my view, but here we are.
Share is the most important word in capitalism. Equity is next, and Security is next. These are not word games, they are distilled principle and law that reflects everything our forebears learned and incorporated into our country, from careful consideration of prior systems and now more than 2 tumultuous and chaotic centuries running, better and worse, yet somehow advancing rights and prosperity overall, decade by insane decade.
apologies for running on, hope some was useful and even inspiring, it fires me up -- b.rad
Watched a movie last night, mostly about Princess Diana, called "Spencer", and was shocked by the inequality I was seeing. That a person's lifestyle can vary so greatly - on the one hand the royalty feels that it's their duty to spend the day hunting pheasants, while being waited on continuously (they can't even open a car door for themselves; a servant must open the door for them); at the other end of the spectrum are the ones laboring intensively in dirty, toxic conditions to make a few shillings so they can eat. How can the U.K. endure such inequality? - in spite of this inequality, people turned out in droves to catch a glimpse of her casket, and it was all done in a civil manner. So my question is, what's the difference between the U.K. and the U.S.? How can they embrace such inequality, while in the U.S. the solution is to turn to violence and crime? I guess I'm suggesting that inequality isn't the only problem, that there must be other factors at play, factors pertaining to human nature. Do humans need to have an authority figure to worship, such as a king or queen? By forsaking royalty, did the U.S. ensure this kind of societal collapse?
I've worked with Brits all over the planet. Not all, not even most, but plenty absolutely believe in a class system. In Borneo, several wives tracked me down on the beach and asked me if I had a degree. Yeah, at that time I had just the BSEE. They were stunned - why would anyone with a degree do that job. These British wives were all lower class white people, and really wanted to move up the class ladder. They actually set up a pecking order, that's why they went after my wife, since I have a degree my wife should speak first - hard to imagine. All the men ignored it, we were just coworkers, but it really mattered to the wives.
Every Brit I've worked with knew the system, so when I do jobs in the former British Empire I always try to go with a Brit so he can point out who needs stroking.
Centuries of indoctrination will ingrain stupid stuff. Look at Americans - most Americans ignore the ridiculous monarchy, but tens of millions LOVE it.
Now look at NaziRepublican Party worshippers. They truly buy the lie that rich people are smarter, better, more WORTHY than us.
Thom is once again pointing out the obvious that has been well understood for centuries, but somehow keeps being forgotten by citizens - maybe the goal of eliminating education from our educational systems?
Great article, now I wonder how we can keep this alive in minds of Americans without Thom always having to do it.
If only we had a political party to oppose the NaziRepublican Party, they could win every election nation wide by simply telling Americans the truth.
I don't know why the Democrats FAIL SO MIGHTILY at their narrative. Because it IS a rich narrative. We have lots to boast about - or just plain educate the whole damn country about what Democrats have been able to do - honestly.
For myself, I'm going to read Andy Borowitz's new book - "PROFILES IN IGNORANCE - How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber."
This seems obvious, but I never hear it mentioned, except by Thom.
As kid in the 50's, I was in the top 1%, put in all the honors programs, and had well informed teachers, then got multiple degrees, and have worked in 150 countries - yet I never hear this discussed anywhere on earth.
Although the theory is obvious and obviously true, it's complex and complicated and not at all black and white, thus so boring nobody will listen.
I've long said education was the biggest problem, but while fixing education fixes inequality, fixing inequality fixes education too, so fix either one and we are good to go.
The question is HOW.
Thom and me and you-all discussing this isn't accomplishing any change.
Woody Guthrie Quote: " Just because I ain't got as much money as you got is a pretty good sign that you're crookeder than me. And it ain't to laugh about. It makes me do some pretty tall thinking how to get that money off of you and give it back to the folks that's broke. "
Thom -- Reading even a brief overview summary of your early trajectory is enlightening, thought provoking, terrifying, humbling . . . and exhausting. Thanks.
Pugnacious, extreme, and true is often a good place to start negotiating.
Households are the most important, the most numerous, and the most fundamental corporate entities in our country, from one productive perspective.
I just want my household to be taxed like a corporation.
Revenue comes in, we deduct fair and reasonably expenses, and our overlapping communities can tax what's left. [ household revenue is not income . . . for starters . . . and someday I hope to understand how personal income, according to the Fed, just about equals GDP . . . mind bending ]
See ( .gov ) <https://apps.bea.gov/scb/2022/05-may/0522-gdp-economy.htm#personal-income> Also shows GDP, normalized, so like so many of these damn reports, the whole numbers are not reported, only changes!
Of course, if we really did tax households like corporations -- thanks SCOTUS! -- only rich people would pay much in taxes, while spending massively to change the definitions of 'fair' and 'reasonable,' for starters, no doubt.
If we pay a working family a dollar, a rich guy gets it almost immediately.
So rich guys should be spending almost all of their time working to get dollars to households.
That's not what I'm seeing, in the main, so it's up to us, I'm guessing.
best luck to US -- b.rad
Inequity is a logical cause for much of the crime, stress, and tension we are suffering. Simply put, the resentment and acting on it are human nature.
The problem is the morbidly rich, but we are absolutely obsessed with them. Their lifestyles and toys are endlessly fascinating. We as a society need to get OVER that, and I do see some change taking place.
Accepting the aftermath of the pandemic and the derangement the Trump years have caused would be the adult thing to do. Finding remedies is the right thing to do. Teaching others to help not hurt is the hard thing to do.
Thanks Thom for helping every way you can.
Morbidly rich is perfect. It doesn’t just apply to the rich person him- or herself, but also as a perception of anyone observing the rich person. ‘Morbid’ and ‘morbidly’ can be used in a number of descriptive ways. A story or a scene can be morbid, a remark or expression can be made morbidly, etc. We desperately need this phrase and others like it to counter the ongoing avalanche of radical-right deprecatory rhetoric the bad guys work so hard to keep fresh and new!
There's something about the phrase "morbidly rich" that bothers me. Yes, great wealth does sap those who possess it, but its lethally toxic effects on those who don't possess it is the far greater societal problem.
Hum, very good point, though I like the phrase because it does accurately describe many of these folks. They aren't horrible people, just mentally ill.
So, what word describes morbidity that in contagious, or infectious? Let's give Thom a better bumper sticker. Not me, I can't think of one, but hey, you brought it up, maybe you have a better word. I'm all ears, well mostly ears, Stephanie Miller is on in the background.
How about "malignantly wealthy sociopaths" because their avarice is the root cause of the grievances that have metastasized America into a backsliding democracy (and they just don't care)?
I'd argue they aren't the root cause, the inverted tax code is really to blame, but yes, they would be the root cause if they could.
Malignant sort of misses for me, but wealthy sociopath absolutely nails it.
Maybe morbidly wealthy SOCIOPATH. It fits in the same area. Instead of saying "the morbidly rich did XYZ", we say "morbidly wealthy sociopaths did XYZ"
Yeah, your phrase explains both the cause and the disease.
You get five gold stars and an extra cookie for nap time (the one thing about getting old is I really loved nap time). Thanks.
After just getting up from my nap, I'd argue that wealthy sociopaths decided to invert the tax code and made it law because they had already arranged for the Supreme Court to make money equal to speech and corporations into citizens thus creating the powers of corporate personhood. The people who created and exploit those powers are the root cause, and the tax code is just one of their evil spawn. And the more that I think about it, "morbidly rich" makes the point and is half the syllables so Thom has been right all along.
Well, can't argue with any of that, but even half the syllables, in the USA we need to say "rich bad" or they won't be able to understand. How many Americans could define "morbidly". They might get "morbid". Rich bad, ugh ugh, even though the actual problem is 1% of the 1%, not the 1%
Stabilizer, I reread my reply to you and I have to agree that your observation about the root cause being tax code changes preceded the powers of corporate personhood as we know them today, but the decisions that caused the inversion of the tax code were still made by wealthy sociopaths.
Yep, can't prove you wrong, wouldn't anyway because you area right.
Lately, I decided to make a point to politicians BEGGING FOR MONEY. From me - a person living on Social Security alone. I spent all of my two pensions paying medical bills - even with Medicare and a MediGap. Do NOT get seriously ill in the United States! SO, several senators have been begging for money from me for months! I looked up the current annual salary for US Senators - it's an alarming $174,000. But actually that's just considered in the middle class range.
Just recently I heard from one of my Dem senators, Senator Michael Bennet whining about a Trumpist getting a super PAC of a few million bucks, and asking ME for a donation.
I wrote him back (instead of stewing) and told him I knew how much his Senate salary was, and that he should be embarrassed asking for money for me, who makes $14K/year.
He wrote me back this morning - "I'm opting you out of texts immediately. Have a great day." And I thanked him, told him he was doing a great job AND I was voting for him.
I don't think this is off-topic. Because if my family had been one of those morbidly rich ones, I would be likely "just fine." But I'm NOT! And I hope I started to spread the word to these other politicians! - Alive in Denver
Thom, you are, and have been, living an extraordinary life... and we all are the happy beneficiaries of your experience.
Inequality is a problem. Weird isn't it, that humans have a strong instinct for Fairness, and yet a stronger instinct for Greed? And THAT is precisely why we need Laws and Corporate Regulations.
This has the ring of truth. Inequality stinks -- and the scent is everywhere, corrupting our social interactions. While publications like the NY Post gin up every crime that happens in NYC, they imply that street crime is caused by the sick, the insane, and the just plain incorrigible. It doesn't recognize the truth you are putting forward -- that in an unequal society, resentments spin out of control, and the social cohesion that would prevent violence gutters out like a candle without oxygen.
You shouldn’t even have to go into such detail to justify taxation for the morbidly rich. Kind of a joke that Elizabeth Warren asked about whatever that number was, like 2 percent. Ha ha ha. I’d say we even should outlaw billionaires, where no one needs more than $100M or so. HOWEVER, what I want to contribute is that social cohesion wouldn’t “just mean” taxing the rich. Let’s hear it for Universal Basic Income. Soon enough there won’t be enough jobs thanks to automation and we will have to have something like that, but we are just timidly doing little experiments instead of using that big-time as a way, along with those taxes, to change the game.
Thanks Suzanne for the focus on the need for universal basic income. . . and how affordable.
The nature of work is a huge topic, but it doesn't seem to me that there will be too little. ( speaking as an unemployed guy on Medicare with 2 fancy engineering degrees and a fairly recent US patent law registration . . . looking for good work for 3 years running now . . . how can that be? I can't guarantee you, but algorithms and excruciatingly young recruiters know I'm over 45, would be where I would start . . . )
We saw the stabilizing power of payments for children in the pandemic. But Rs voted against. Big source of current unrest in my mind, not anywhere near as bad as most of that detailed by Thom above, but easily fixable. And that, in a nut, is what Rs do not want.
My approach / view is that we each have exactly one vote in this great federal enterprise, the United States -- *only* if we can keep it -- and that means we have exactly one share in that same all-encompassing enterprise. The USA controls all business public and private within its jurisdiction, and in a fundamental accounting sense, that means that We the People own everything. Everything.
We are not getting our dividends.
Net household wealth in the USA increased approximately $70 Trillion ( with a T ) in the past 10 years. Thom has cited a $50 Trillion transfer. Overwhelming. Overlapping? Probably.
National debt increased about $12 Trillion in the same period. Mostly bad debt, corrupt, pushed on us by those who can easily afford it, and their slavering demented lackeys. ( not fair? Yes, I was too nice . . . )
The top 10% own about $45 Trillion, net wealth. Net. So 2% on that amount would generate about $900 Billion, almost a Trillion dollars a year. The excellent Senator Warren has been remiss, very unlike her in my book, in never citing just how much the wealthy control. She talks about taxing those over $50 million; it takes about $13 million to get into the top 1%, for a total of $17 Trillion, and I recall that Senator Warren was proposing to generate about $200 Billion a year. It takes about $1.5 million, net, to get into the top 10%; many of those are simply working class retirees from the old days, who have IRAs and a house. How the Fed accounts for the estimated capital values of pensions and Social Security and Medicare is still a mystery to me, I'm betting they don't, big hole.
Source ( .gov ) <https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/>
[ notes $136 T, 2022 Q2; $65 T, 2012 Q2; -> ++ $70 T 10 years, - $6 T last Q ( boo who ? ) ]
[ note! bottom 50 keeps increasing, if ridiculously small fraction . . . put $2 T there, happiness! ]
We are the board of directors of the boards of directors.
We are not properly exercising our rights nor our responsibilities in that regard, clearly, and that also shows the need for republican ( small r ) operation of our sprawling and rich ( small d ) democracy. [ every group is a democracy -- some just do it a damn sight better than others ]
It's always Opposite Day in the self-destructive camp we are struggling with, so I'm sure you can hear the cries of 'socialism!'
It's not socialist to own and vote a share of an enterprise. It's profoundly capitalist. Neither word is particularly controlling or useful in the conduct of a prosperous modern society that has both shared ownership and shared responsibility built right into its constitution, laws, and history, in my view, but here we are.
Share is the most important word in capitalism. Equity is next, and Security is next. These are not word games, they are distilled principle and law that reflects everything our forebears learned and incorporated into our country, from careful consideration of prior systems and now more than 2 tumultuous and chaotic centuries running, better and worse, yet somehow advancing rights and prosperity overall, decade by insane decade.
apologies for running on, hope some was useful and even inspiring, it fires me up -- b.rad
Watched a movie last night, mostly about Princess Diana, called "Spencer", and was shocked by the inequality I was seeing. That a person's lifestyle can vary so greatly - on the one hand the royalty feels that it's their duty to spend the day hunting pheasants, while being waited on continuously (they can't even open a car door for themselves; a servant must open the door for them); at the other end of the spectrum are the ones laboring intensively in dirty, toxic conditions to make a few shillings so they can eat. How can the U.K. endure such inequality? - in spite of this inequality, people turned out in droves to catch a glimpse of her casket, and it was all done in a civil manner. So my question is, what's the difference between the U.K. and the U.S.? How can they embrace such inequality, while in the U.S. the solution is to turn to violence and crime? I guess I'm suggesting that inequality isn't the only problem, that there must be other factors at play, factors pertaining to human nature. Do humans need to have an authority figure to worship, such as a king or queen? By forsaking royalty, did the U.S. ensure this kind of societal collapse?
I've worked with Brits all over the planet. Not all, not even most, but plenty absolutely believe in a class system. In Borneo, several wives tracked me down on the beach and asked me if I had a degree. Yeah, at that time I had just the BSEE. They were stunned - why would anyone with a degree do that job. These British wives were all lower class white people, and really wanted to move up the class ladder. They actually set up a pecking order, that's why they went after my wife, since I have a degree my wife should speak first - hard to imagine. All the men ignored it, we were just coworkers, but it really mattered to the wives.
Every Brit I've worked with knew the system, so when I do jobs in the former British Empire I always try to go with a Brit so he can point out who needs stroking.
Centuries of indoctrination will ingrain stupid stuff. Look at Americans - most Americans ignore the ridiculous monarchy, but tens of millions LOVE it.
Now look at NaziRepublican Party worshippers. They truly buy the lie that rich people are smarter, better, more WORTHY than us.
Thom is once again pointing out the obvious that has been well understood for centuries, but somehow keeps being forgotten by citizens - maybe the goal of eliminating education from our educational systems?
Great article, now I wonder how we can keep this alive in minds of Americans without Thom always having to do it.
If only we had a political party to oppose the NaziRepublican Party, they could win every election nation wide by simply telling Americans the truth.
I don't know why the Democrats FAIL SO MIGHTILY at their narrative. Because it IS a rich narrative. We have lots to boast about - or just plain educate the whole damn country about what Democrats have been able to do - honestly.
For myself, I'm going to read Andy Borowitz's new book - "PROFILES IN IGNORANCE - How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber."
This seems obvious, but I never hear it mentioned, except by Thom.
As kid in the 50's, I was in the top 1%, put in all the honors programs, and had well informed teachers, then got multiple degrees, and have worked in 150 countries - yet I never hear this discussed anywhere on earth.
Although the theory is obvious and obviously true, it's complex and complicated and not at all black and white, thus so boring nobody will listen.
I've long said education was the biggest problem, but while fixing education fixes inequality, fixing inequality fixes education too, so fix either one and we are good to go.
The question is HOW.
Thom and me and you-all discussing this isn't accomplishing any change.