Also, I wanted to say that you have a real disdain for undergrads and high school drop-outs. Lack of a degree doesn't mean that one is incapable of higher thought. Nor does a degree ensure that one is capable of critical thinking.

Not sure how you got that out of my comment, but your leap of logic is not a surprise, as it is common with you. THAT's what I have a disdain for.

My point was that this guy is an undergrad and he made an attempt at a theory - one that economists, politicians, business titans, and everyday people have been struggling with, andyet he comes up with a theory that everyone quickly jumped on without actually doing the math.  It was a good attempt and it started a conversation.  But instead of focusing on the fact that his theory left out a HUGE chunk information, and came up with faulty results (those results which have been widely proven to be false, with the exceptions of the hanger-oners like MSNBC), you instead to come up with the fantasy that I have disdain for those without education because you don't like what I have to say because it doesn't comport with your little view of the world and how life works in reality.

That's primarily due neither to massive government overspending on social programs or minority welfare queens on the make, but to the pursuit of shortsighted economic policies by the powers-that-be which placed the short-term profit taking of a relatively wealthy few shareholders over the long-term needs of the far larger but not-so-wealthy working and middle classes (discussed below), and which encouraged and rewarded the massive outsourcing of good-paying manufacturing jobs overseas to vastly cheaper labor markets -- ultimately leaving our own U.S. workdorce high and dry, and twisting in a very cold and sour wind.

Further, lots of small businesses, not just restaurant franchises, have been compelled to close their doors since the Great Recession began back in the late summer of 2008. Yet you continue to repeatedly advocate the same reactionary and failed economic policies that got us here in the first place. When you find yourself in a hole, isn't it wise to cease digging, rather than accelerate the excavation to nowhere?

A comprehensive economic survey on wealth and power conducted by G. William Domhoff, Ph.D., of the Univ. of California at Santa Cruz found that in 2010, 91.6% of all shares of common stock in this country are owned and held by the wealthiest 20% of Americans, while the remaining 80% of us hold only a 8.4% stake in the stock market.

Further, that same survey shows that in 2010, the wealthiest 20% of Americans owned an astonishing 88.9% of all financial assets and net worth in the United States, yet simultaneously accounted for only 64.3% of all local, state and federal tax revenues collected. Again, that means the remaining 80% of us, who own only 11.1% of our nation's financial assets and net worth, are responsible for providing 35.7% of all government revenues.

Finally, the survey reveals that the share of our nation's wealth owned by the richest 1% of Americans nearly doubled during the period of 1976-1995, from 19.9% to 38.5%. While that share has since receded back slightly to 35.6% in 2010, that still represents an astonishing 44% increase in the top 1%'s share of wealth over a 35-year period.

Therefore, should you now be thinking, "Wow! What's wrong with this picture?", then welcome back to the real world of today.

If you're truly interested in learning why your own earning power and financial position has eroded over the previous few decades, I'd strongly suggest that Dr. Domhoff's study is the responsible place to commence your search for answers -- and not the babbling talking heads of AM squawk radio, who constantly scapegoat poor whites and minorities over the corporate-controlled airwaves.

And remember, while looking to yesteryear through rose-colored glasses is a natural human trait, one should no more try to recreate a mythical past which never really existed in the first place, than one should attempt to live in it.

When my broke-arse gets a raise I spend more money...more eating out, more concerts, more vacations, more weed.  When we spend more money more businesses make money, and if they share the gravy with their workers they spend more money...everybody wins!

The idea is not to dictate to those of lesser means what sacrifices they should make but to provide them with a living wage so that they don't need to sacrifice one necessity for another.

Further, as far as I can tell, most homes and hotels do not have air conditioning. I know our hotel sure doesn't. Even with all the windows open and the ceiling fans on full blast, it was miserable sleeping last night.

A little anecdote for your consideration: almost two years ago, my elderly aunt died.  She had had Alzheimer's and had been in a nursing home for about 4 years.  It wasn't cheap - the average monthly bill was around $10,000.  But I noticed something: there was almost no turnover among the staff - the aides who helped with feeding and dressing and bathing. The people who changed the linens and cleaned the bathrooms.  I mentioned this to someone in administration during a conversation, and she told me that the turnover was negligible because they made a decision some time ago to pay these employees well.  She said that with these Alzheimer's patients, consistency of routine was important to keeping their overall stress and anxiety levels low, and seeing the same faces every day was part of that routine.  The people who worked there were happy to work there, and that was reflected in the level of care and attention they gave to the residents.  

Now, maybe you'd think the jobs these people were doing weren't worth more than $5 an hour, that these jobs should have been reserved for high school students, or someone who'd never had a job before, or just any person who could manage to show up on time every day, but what was important to me, and to the families of the other patients, was that our loved ones be cared for as if they mattered.  

When employers cheap out on wages, they convey to the employee not that they think the job isn't worth more money, but that the person doing the job isn't worth more.  And that has all kinds of negative consequences.

... the U.S. media is still feeling burned by their sensationally horrific wall-to-wall coverage 80 years ago of Honolulu's notorious "Massie Affair" -- in which their highly publicized so-called "victim," a pampered young socialite named Thalia Massie, was eventually proved to have falsely accused five local boys of gang-raping and bludgeoning her, in order to initially explain away to her U.S. Navy officer husband the vicious beating she suffered at the hands of someone else -- most likely, a former lover who was one of her husband's fellow officers.

Over Thalia's objections, Lt. Thomas Massie called the Honolulu police to report her claim, which then compelled her to repeat the lie, and thus set in motion a tragic cascade of mind-numbing events. Five young men were conveniently arrested and charged with the crime, and the U.S. media quickly picked up the story and ran with it, pontificating remorselessly about the territory of Hawaii's failure to defend virtuous white womanhood from its own sex-addled Polynesian savages.

Within a matter of months, it culminated in the tragic lynching of one of the five accused young men by Thalia's husband and her mother, Grace Bell Fortescue -- who was an heiress to the Bell Telephone fortune, and whose husband was the favorite nephew of former President Theodore Roosevelt, which added an even more attractive but highly toxic element of celebrity to the case.

Despite the fact that both Lt. Massie and Mrs. Fortescue were caught red-handed by HPD while attempting to dispose of the body and were subsequently charged with murder, the U.S. media nevertheless hailed the two from coast to coast as national heroes, the famous defense attorney Clarence Darrow was retained by the Bell family to defend them, and the stage was set for arguably one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in the history of 20th century American jurisprudence.

Historians have since speculated that Hawaii statehood may have been set back by over a quarter-century as a direct result of the tragic story's notoriety and infamy, thanks in no small part to the American media's disgracefully biased and racist coverage of the case.