Does the 1% deserve all the wealth it has accumulated in the last 30-40 years? Is it truly fair that middle-class income has stagnated? Did the middle class do something to deserve that wage freeze?
I overlooked this part of the earlier post to which I responded, prior to going for that much-needed walk.
What does the wealth of that theoretical 1% represent? To me, it is far from a simple measure of what their bank accounts hold. As I said before, the money in the bank is still working, albeit via the bank doing the investing as it sees fit. However, as a wealthy man told me: "Rob, money in the bank is a stinking fish,". Clearly, his meaning was to have it out there,
working directly for you, financing more business adventures. And I think that's something easily missed: business often is seen as an adventure, not just a way of earning a basic crust. Trouble is, as with the stock market or gambling, you have to be careful that you can afford to lose what you employ or otherwise risk. That is one very good reason for keeping it in the bank. Or it was, until the last few years.
Those zillionaires, do they all own 100% of the companies where their money lives? Can they instantly remove it without loss? I doubt that's always the case; I think it more likely that it consists of ownership investments that can be there for the long term, and not just fun money for the blowing on women and yachts and Lears.
So, that 1% does enjoy a higher possible standard of living than most of us so busily cracking our balls in this discussion, but so what? It made the money; we did not.
Regarding the middle-classes: who or what are they? Am I middle-class because I ran a business in what some perceived a gamorous industry? Is a guy who runs a large plumbing company working-class because the money comes from fixing toilets and unblocking sewers and drains? Is an airline pilot middle-class because he makes a lot of money? If so, where do you place a celebrity hairdresser making even more?
If there really is a middle-class, and if it is being frozen in its tracks, perhaps all that that may represent is this: when inflation slows, when people no longer feel confident enough to demand higher salaries, all that has happened is that they have found themselves in a rare moment of natural equilibrium, where true worth to society has been reached.
It's hardly a matter of any class
deserving any particular position, more is it a matter of how things stand and are.
Taking Slobodan's point: as for how some billionaires chose to leave their wealth, that's up to them. That they may love or hate their children and bequeath as they do is a personal relationship that only they can or need understand. Charity donations usually bring tax advantages, do they not? Also, when money means very little because you don't need to count it anymore, what's wrong with giving it to those you'd like to help? Even the cynic must admit there's a feelgood factor involved, over and beyond the tax advantage, when you fund a new wing to a cancer hospital.