20111122 The Percentage Game

Recently there has been a lot of talk dividing Americans into different groups or “percents”. The top 1% controls the wealth. The top five percent pay 85% of the taxes. Prior to this past year, the divisions predominantly centered on quintiles. The top 20% owns everything. The bottom 20% has nothing.

All the talk has gotten me thinking about my own position in the big scheme of things. I was born into a household that would have been in the fourth quintile. (60% had more; 20% had less, the rest were even.) When I ventured out into the world, I was definitely in the bottom 20%. I had a student loan, a minimum wage part time job, two roommates and was surrounded by people in the same situation. So I became acquainted with people who were actively trying to move up the ladder and who were able to connect me with people in the first, second and third quintile so that I could start learning from them.

My job moved me from the fifth quintile to the fourth and held out hope for the third but that was the end there. Of course, there were other jobs that I could have taken and that could have moved me up the socio-economic ladder, but I had my eye on more successful people and tried to make decisions based on what they would do.

Today, I live comfortably in the top quintile. I do not belong to the one percent or the ten percent, but I have not worked in years and plan to never work again. I do not need a handout and do not anticipate ever needing a handout. As I said, I am comfortable and I wish to stay that way. I have tried to look ahead and foresee what kind of calamities might be down the road so that I can plan for them. I would not say I go around predicting doom, but I plan for it so if something bad happens, I can go on and remain comfortable. When the hurricane hit this past September, I evacuated when the police showed up at the door saying the earthen dam up in the hills looked like it might fail and after the storm was over, I came back threw away everything that was destroyed and began repairing and replacing. Many people in the area and in my own neighborhood lost their homes. I took precautions years ago so if I lost my home, I could move on and never need to rely on others. This left me in a position to help those who needed it.

The point is, I started in the last quintile and moved myself to the top quintile. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to hear Thomas Sowell speak. He stated that this was the normal state of being for Americans throughout the history of our country; that we each find ourselves moving through different quintiles as we pass through life.

The protesters who have been part of the occupy movement are upset that some people have more and they act as though we each live out our lives at one level and never move out of it. They appear to believe that the rich have always been rich and the poor have always been poor.

That is actually truer today than it has ever been in our country and current trends are making it even more so. I may be part of one of the last generations who had the ability to climb the ladder. Under the guise of being kinder and gentler, our government continues to enact policies and create programs which have the stated purpose of helping the less fortunate but which, in reality, lock people into position. These policies have the tendency to ensure that those who have power will always have power. It becomes increasingly difficult for a startup to come along and grab market share or otherwise threaten the status quo. As such, it becomes more and more difficult for anyone to pull themselves up and move up the ladder.

As power consolidates into an elite class, it becomes increasing possible and even wise to punish those who do not conform to the kinder, gentler, keep them in their place mentality. We leave in the power to take the top down while killing the opportunity to bring the bottom up. This will continue to consolidate power into a smaller, more centralized elite class. This trend, if allowed to continue, can only lead to one eventual situation. We will have a small group of rulers who move power through themselves generationally (an aristocracy) and a very large population of people equal in their lack of assets (a surf class). We bring ourselves back to a feudal state and usher in a dark age. It was called “the American experiment” for a reason.

The Occupy movement is populated by people who are looking for a way to bring about change in a positive way, however it is run by individuals such as Van Jones who want to solidify a position for themselves in a post republic era.

Check out: Anthem by Ayn Rand and any YouTube video of Thomas Sowell. Also check any speech given by Van Jones to a closed audience which would not be attended by someone not already a believer in the new world order.