thedeadline: Mother Jones: “A Harvard business...

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Mother Jones:

“A Harvard business prof and a behavioral economist recently asked more than 5,000 Americans how they thought wealth is distributed in the United States. Most thought that it’s more balanced than it actually is. Asked to choose their ideal distribution of wealth, 92% picked one that was even more equitable.”

More charts…

Ugh. Charts that mean essentially nothing but can be extrapolated out for random probably fear-mongering uses.

Just because people would like something a certain way doesn’t mean it should be that way. Yes, people don’t realize what a large gap there is in wealth distribution. But out of a sampling of 5000 people how many of them can explain all the reasons WHY it is so? Probably not many based on my experience of how much people research things. Instead they see something like this, take it out of context, and vilify it.

I want a million dollars. So what? That doesn’t mean it’s fair for me to have a million dollars and it doesn’t mean I should get a million dollars. Same with how people would LIKE income distribution to be. In a democracy the distribution of wealth would theoretically come to a “natural” state depending upon supply and demand. Unfortunately, we currently have a system that has regulations in place allowing the wealthy to take even greater advantage of the second, third, etc. tiers.

The issue I have with this graphic is that it doesn’t explain anything. It doesn’t say WHY the wealth is so crazily skewed right, it just says, “Look! There are a shit ton of people taking all the money and you didn’t even know it!”

Instead of researching whims and making charts of them, we should be focusing on the regulations and laws that are allowing those top 20% to take advantage of the system and suck the money out of “the little guy”.

Having wealth isn’t bad in and of itself. Neither is wanting to make money. The problem is when we have a system that allows it to get out of control…and I don’t mean the free market. I mean laws that protect CEOs and others so that when they commit frauds and extortion they aren’t properly punished. Laws that encourage people away from innovation and the creation of value, which is what a business is about.

Basically I guess what I’m saying is that when we make graphics and do research we need to be careful not to insinuate anything further than exactly what the graph represents. (Edit: Though I’m not saying anyone did that for this graphic so perhaps it was pointless rant.)

(via loveyourchaos)

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