[smartyaz]

“If you’ve no debts and have $10 in your pocket you have more wealth than 25% of Americans. More than 25% of Americans have collectively that is.”

The thing is– not only did the government create the incentives, but they set the standard.

With a net worth of negative $60 trillion, US citizens are just following dutifully in the government’s footsteps.

Taking a fresh look at the country, you have to admit that when the vast majority of the wealth is held in the hands of the tiniest percent;

When a quarter of the population has negative net worth;
When the government has $18 trillion in debt and another $42 trillion in unfunded liabilities;

And when the central bank is borderline insolvent;

It becomes really hard to make the case that you’re still the richest country in the world.”

[Don Corleone]

Taking a fresh look at the country, you have to admit that when the vast majority of the wealth is held in the hands of the tiniest percent;

This has been true since the days of the Pharaohs and probably even before that. More crapola from the media.

[Zuse]

There is similar disconnect when politicians talk about tax rates when they want to soak the rich. “Income” is not the same as “wealth” or “consumption.”

[RipSawyer]

The average American has never been anywhere near as wealthy as some people have attempted to claim and the situation for the working class has greatly deteriorated during my lifetime. I grew up literally walking behind a plow pulled by a mule. The only internal combustion engine on our forty acres was the one in the pickup truck my father drove to work and which served as our only passenger vehicle other than a wagon pulled by a mule. Yet when you consider that we owned that forty acres and the pathetic little house and the pickup truck and the animals free and clear, unencumbered by debt and my parents had more money in the bank, if you apply a proper inflation adjustment, than most Americans do today we were actually wealthy and didn’t know it compared to a huge percentage of Americans today.

A lot of Freepers are caught up in this notion that because people now have cell phones, computers and big TV sets that they are rich. It is a pathetic fantasy, people who have no net worth or a negative net worth and live in a rented dwelling are far from wealthy regardless of how many toys they have to play with.