Our focus should be on making the most of our own lives, regardless of whether we start at the bottom or the top- not on envying the advantages and achievements of others.

~ Yaron Brook

Yaron Brook Equal Is Unfair Income Inequality Individualism Individuality Inspirational Motivational Opportunity Self Improvement Self Motivation

Politics is a game played by the rich with the lives of the poor.

~ J.adam Snyder

J.adam Snyder Game Income Inequality J Adam Snyder Political Quotes Politics Poverty Quotes About Life The Poor Wealth

All told, over the period 1932-1980, nearly half a century, the top federal income tax rate in the United States averaged 81 percent.

~ Thomas Piketty

Thomas Piketty Business Capital Consumerism Democrat Distribution Of Wealth Economy Eisenhower Greed Income Inequality Money Politics Republican Taxation Taxes

Rabbi Hiyya advised his wife, “When a poor man comes to the door, be quick to give him food so that the same may be done to your children.” She exclaimed, “You are cursing our children [with the suggestion that they may become beggars].” But Rabbi Hiyya replied, “There is a wheel which revolves in this world.” —Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 151b

~ Joseph Telushkin

Joseph Telushkin Altruism Cycle Of Life Generosity Income Inequality Jewish Poverty Talmud What Goes Around Comes Around

If one sentence were to sum up the mechanism driving the Great Stagnation, it is this: Recent and current innovation is more geared to private goods than to public goods. That simple observation ties together the three major macroeconomic events of our time: growing income inequality, stagnant median income, and the financial crisis.

~ Tyler Cowen

Tyler Cowen Financial Crisis Financial Crisis Of 2007 2011 Income Inequality Innovation Recession Technology Technology Enchantment The Great Stagnation The Recession

Indentured servitude is banned, but what about students seeking to sell shares of their future earnings in exchange for money up front to pay for their college tuitions?

~ Robert B. Reich

Robert B. Reich Bernie Sanders Capitalism Income Inequality Socialism Student Loan Debt

This is a nation of inconsistencies. The Puritans fleeing from oppression became oppressors. We fought England for our liberty and put chains on four million of blacks. We wiped out slavery and our tariff laws and national banks began a system of white wage slavery worse than the first. Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.

~ Mary Lease

Mary Lease 1890S Capitalism Income Inequality Politics Progressive Progressive Era Too Big To Fail Wall Street

The question will arise and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine: Which shall rule — wealth or man? Which shall lead — money or intellect? Who shall fill public stations — educated and patriotic freemen or the feudal serfs of corporate capital?

~ Edward G. Ryan

Edward G. Ryan 1890S Antitrust Capitalism Income Inequality Politics Progressive Progressive Era Wisconsin Supreme Court

In 7.81 square miles of vaunted black community, the 850 square feet of Dum Dum Donuts was the only place in the community where one could experience the Latin root of the word, where a citizen could revel in common togetherness. So one rainy Sunday afternoon, not long after the tanks and media attention had left, my father ordered his usual. He sat at the table nearest the ATM and said aloud, to no one in particular, Do you know that the average household net worth for whites is $113,149 per year, Hispanics $6,325, and black folks $5,677?For real?What's your source material, nigger?The Pew Research Center.Motherfuckers from Harvard to Harlem respect the Pew Research Center, and hearing this, the concerned patrons turned around in their squeaky plastic seats as best they could, given that donut shop swivel chairs swivel only six degrees in either direction. Pops politely asked the manager to dim the lights. I switched on the overhead projector, slid a transparency over the glass, and together we craned our necks toward the ceiling, where a bar graph titled Income Disparity as Determined by Race hovered overhead like some dark, damning, statistical cumulonimbus cloud threatening to rain on our collective parades.I was wondering what that li'l nigger was doing in a donut shop with a damn overhead projector.

~ Paul Beatty

Paul Beatty African Americans Blacks Community Income Income Inequality Presentations Racial Relations

Socialists claim to be in favor of equitable redistribution of income and wealth, but who determines what is equitable and does the actual redistribution?

~ Dinesh D'souza

Dinesh D'souza Income Inequality Redistribution Socialism