Our Country's Economy

"The typical respondent believed that the top 20 percent of Americans owned 60 percent of the wealth, and the bottom 40 percent owned 10 percent. They knew, in other words, that wealth in the United States was not distributed equally, but were unaware of just how unequal the distribution was."

In an op-ed appearing in the Los Angeles Times, explaining that the top 20% of Americans actually own about 85% of the wealth, while the bottom 40% own even less than 1% - the greatest disparity since the 1920s before the crash. Dan Ariely a professor of behavioral economics at Duke and Michael Norton an associate professor of business administration at Harvard.

"Outsized financial rewards should be reserved for those who take outsized financial risks with their own money or have outsized, demonstrable talent. Investment bankers, by and large, just do not make that cut."

William Cohan, writer and former Wall Street Banker, in his semi-monthly column for the New York Times, October, 2010.

It seems to me the people who do make the cut include Thomas Edison (GE), Henry Ford (Ford Motor), Steve Jobs (Apple), Barnum & Bailey, Houdini, Mickey Mantle, Frank Sinatra, Bill Gates (Microsoft), Carl Ichan, Warren Buffett, The Beatles, JP Morgan, Commodore Vanderbilt.