As income from work has become more concentrated in America, the super rich have invested in businesses, real estate, art, and other assets. The income from these assets is now concentrating even faster than income from work.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
In real terms, there is a greater disparity of earnings between the very rich and the very poor.
The generosity of the super-rich is sometimes proffered as evidence they're contributing as much to the nation's well-being as they did decades ago when they paid a much larger share of their earnings in taxes.
The rich get richer. Not only because they have surpluses with which to invest, but because of the overriding emotional release they experience from having wealth.
It's an irony that growing inequality could mean more money for philanthropy. In the U.S., quite a few of the ultra-rich have taken to heart the 19th century industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie's comment that it's a disgrace to die wealthy.
In financial terms, my sense is that the distribution of wealth, unequal as it is, is self-perpetuating, and, especially in a linked and accelerating world, the rich get ever more quickly richer while the poor get ever more speedily poorer.
The key to wealth is not what we earn. It is in what is spent on us.
Real riches are the riches possessed inside.
There is a gigantic difference between earning a great deal of money and being rich.
The fact is that, except for those very few whose wealth is overwhelmingly or entirely inherited, the more affluent have usually worked harder than the less affluent.
All riches have their origin in mind. Wealth is in ideas - not money.