Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You're angry because it feels like everybody is getting rich and you aren't. This is uncharitable. In fact most middle class folks who sign on to this frame are motivated by basic ideas like justice and fairness. Realistically policies designed to address wealth inequality are going to make very little difference to anyone here making a typical engineering salary. It's easy to sign on to "a rising tide lifts all bo…
The problem is that more people are middle class+ than ever... so while you complain of "decades of waiting" the fact remains that all boats ARE rising. The only difference is that you now have a direct connection to the few that have risen faster - there have always been those people. But you now see them. They are still the 1% but they are in your face like never before. "it's time to try something else" What else…
Are you citing absolute numbers? The study people usually talk about most here is the Pew one: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-...
Over the past half century, the middle third of the income distribution has dropped from 62% of aggregate income to 43%, mostly at the expense of the upper third (the bottom third is mostly flat, but certainly not "rising").
> "it's time to try something else" What else is there?
The New Deal seems to have done pretty well. Minimum wage laws used to be vastly more effective due to inflation, and we grew just fine in the 60's. Some of it is just fairness: Upper incomes and short term capital gains used to bear a much larger share of the tax burden, and those cuts seem to have done nothing but make rich people richer.
This canard is so tiresome. Someone does the peasant "I think we should improve society somewhat" thing and inevitably they get accused of being a (pause for breah) COMMUNIST. Every time.