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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (320034)	1/11/2007 2:06:27 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573462

Ted Horatio Alger stories are hardly a common bed time tales, but lets assume for the sake of argument that they were common bed time tale "for the children of righties". That still would hardly support your claim that anyone has "floated this myth that the USA is about everyone becoming Bill Gates". I wasn't really familiar with the stories, so I looked up Alger. "...Alger's characters do not typically achieve extreme wealth, but middle-class security, stability, and solidity of reputation..." en.wikipedia.org Bill Gates is hardly middle class. But lets say that Alger did right about people becoming "megawealthy", or that "righties" told other tales of people becoming billionaires to their children. Telling a tale about how it has or can happen is hardly saying that its going to happen to everyone. It doesn't approach floating the idea "that the USA is about everyone becoming Bill Gates". There is a huge jump between saying if you work hard, and make the right decisions there is a good chance you can improve your situation, and saying "there is no reason to be concerned about poverty because everyone can become billionaires if they work hard." The first is what many conservatives and libertarians say, and it is true. The latter is a caricature and a straw man. Let me tell you what reasonable isn't......having 80% of a nation's wealth concentrated in the hands of 5% of its population. So its your contention that you can't have a stable democracy if 80% of the wealth is held by 5% of the individuals?