In his latest book, The Price of Inequality, Columbia Professor and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz examines the causes of income inequality and offers some remedies. In between, he reaches some startling conclusions, including that America is “no longer the land of opportunity” and “the ‘American dream’ is a myth.”
“If there is anybody at all who has a dream, then they can definitely make it happen,” she told WBTV. “There are no excuses. It depends on you and no one else.”
The second link above goes to a story about Dawn Loggins, an 18-year-old girl from Lawndale, NC, who, after her mother and stepfather left the state without her and she was dropped by her grandmother at a local homeless shelter, “just made a decision that I was not going to end up like my parents.” She did well enough in high school to be accepted at Harvard University.
I’m not a Nobel laureate but I can tell you that income correlates to things like education, skills and motivation. If you’re concerned about the inequality of your income, take the time you spend keeping up with fantasy football and reality television and invest it in learning and maintaining marketable skills, and see if your income doesn’t go up.
If you’re complaining about income inequality, and you have any idea who was voted off any reality television program in the last week, you need to pipe down and reexamine your priorities. Watch your programs if you want to, but keep in mind that you’re competing in the job market with people who are more serious than you are.