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That certainly makes sense. OTOH, a good educational system alone may not be enough, as participation in the higher levels of that system usually involves quite a bit of money - even when access is formally free of charge. Es an example, my wife (with a working class background) certainly would not have been able go to university without financial support through the welfare system.

One probably needs both a high quality and formally open educational system _and_ the financial means to support people to access those institutions. This seems to be supported by the fact that U.S. spending on tertiary education is pretty high, while still not producing said vertical social mobility.

Watching the last election cycle, I learned exactly why we have a president who focuses on oil: because that's what the American people care about most deeply. Despite tens of thousands dying in Iraq, most of the news coverage and most of the carping I heard personally was about the energy crunch. Look at this graph. Now tell me why NASA is not at the top of the President's agenda.

That would be a cogent and valid point... if the "middle" could, by acquiring money (and where did you get that the same people trash-talk the rich as tell the middle class to mindlessly accrue wealth?) become rich. To put it in perspective, consider the top 1%, the truly rich, the "creamy layer", who had a quarter of the assets in this country in 1995. (I'll eat a lot of crow if that number's gone down since then, but let's say it's still that.)

Average income (the table breaks down the averages into two segments; I'm recombining them) is about $500k per year. Why, that's only a bit more than ten times what the median family makes; all we middle-class folk have to do is work ten times as hard!

Oh, wait, the assets average $6.8 million. So given that the median lifetime pre-tax income is about $1.8 million (wild guess there, $40k, working from 20 to 65)... hey, all we have to do is work for nearly four lifetimes without spending a cent. Eminently reachable! I have a hard time seeing the difference between the rich and the middle class sometimes myself!

"Altruism was rarely the motivating factor in establishing the large independent foundations - ones like Pew, Ford, MacArthur, Robert Wood Johnson that every NPR listener can name. The Ford Foundation was established to help keep the company in the family without paying estate taxes. John D. MacArthur, founder of Bankers Life and Casualty Company, never made any significant charitable contributions during his lifetime, but left his estate of nearly $1 billion to a foundation rather than to his estranged children. One of the trusts founded by the Sun Oil heirs, the J. Howard Pew Freedom Trust, was established to "acquaint the American people with the evils of bureaucracy... and with the values of a free market...to point out the false promises of Socialism...." In one cozy office the staff of the Pew Charitable Trusts now give out $21 million a year of the J. Howard Pew Freedom Trust both to right-wing groups like the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, and the National Right to Work gang - and to crunchy groups like the Tides Foundation and the Pesticide Action Network, under terms of a different Pew heir's will."

Global income inequality is probably greater than it has ever been in human history. There is some debate about whether it is getting worse or getting better. Currently, the richest 1% of people in the world receives as much as the bottom 57%. The ratio between the average income of the top 5% in the world to the bottom 5% increased from 78 to 1 in 1988 to 114 to 1 in 1993 (Milanovic 1999).

He is an articulate and very learned writer. I highly recommend his publication as well. (Guess I should do a book review....)

See where you are:
Go ahead, take this test, I bet you score better than 85% of all people. Yes, that's pretty privileged.

What those beneath you get:
Poverty is not only low income and no assets. It is a condition of exclusion from the institutions and organizations of modern life. In many countries law courts, banks, education, health services, roads, water, electricity, even respect, are not available to the poor. It is harder for them to get permissions to open businesses, and they are often forced to pay bribes. I first became aware of this in 1972, when Robin and I wrote a check to a Kenyan family. When they tried to bank it, they were told they needed to file a lengthy application, with two recommendations by "respectable persons," to open an account. Neither an illiterate person nor one with no connections would have been able to do that. In most of the world, the poor live in a society distinct from the affluent - different institutions, organizations, and customs, and little communication between the two. The poor are looked down on and denied the courtesies available to others.

The growing disparity between you and them
Gini Index
"Estimates for the early years should be taken only as rough guides, but it's safe to say that income inequality is at levels not seen since the climax of the 1920s boom and the collapse into Depression. After peaking in 1932, the gini began a long downtrend that ended in 1968. It's been almost straight up ever since, pausing only during the mid-1970s and early-1990s recessions."

Joe Sixpack does not have the ability to think things through anymore, as a result of his upbringing. It appears, from here in Europe, that the average American has a very poor grasp of history and geography. It doesn't help that you are being lied to on a daily basis by your government and media.

Frankly, I couldn't care less what arguments you/other Americans provide as an excuse for failing to understand why the US is so hated, or why you don't like Michael Moore. He's doing his bit to inform people, such as those too lazy (or undereducated) to read a book. I`ve seen it, I liked it, I wished more people would see it. I like having my views and opinions challenged, as I don't pick a belief and defend it come what may, but actually form opinions based on the available facts, and change them as other, more facts become available. I used to, for example, think that Palestinian 'suicide attacks' were indefensible. But now I know that the facts are that Israel, backed by the US (40% of US 'aid' goes to Israel), invaded another country, tortures and murders the people there, most of whom were forced out at gunpoint. I don't agree that civilians should be subject to bombs and shootings. But that's exactly what Israel/US have been doing for 50 odd years. What do you expect the Palestinians to do? Play by different rules?

But to listen to your moron of a leader (what sort of message does the fact that he was considered the best of the bunch by the American public send out to the world?), you'd think that its the Palestinians who are terrorists!! Those evil doers of..evil, daring to fight using the only means available (they don't have tanks, helicopters, state of the art weapons and surveillance equipment, nuclear weapons etc do they!) to..uh..take back the land which has been declared illegally taken according to UN Resolutions. How dare they! They're terrorists, that's what they are. They and their evil Muslim followers hate America...all they are trying to do is make the world a better place.

Aren't they?

Why not spend a few minutes checking out some of the articles and interviews on the following links:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Go on. You know you want to. Seriously, please do. For me. Or is Noam Chomsky a liberal extremist too?!