Brad De Long wrote:
> Wow. That people claim that "those with $100,000 annual incomes...
> are not themselves rich" shows how astonishingly wealthy this society
> has become... and how weird our perceptions are...
Not at all. Consider the Swineherd in the *Odyssey* -- a slave. But his position (his relative wealth) was not far from that of someone making $100,000.00 today. Moreover, his present was pretty much his future -- i.e., his present was not ruled by the future. The only people
I know making this kind of money are my daughter and her husband -- and so far as I can determine, the "structure" of their lives bears more resemblance to mine (or even to some of my friends who earn below the poverty level) than it does to any of those in the Forbes 400. Have you read Doug's piece on the distribution of wealth in the U.S.?
It takes an awful lot of wealth -- probably more than anyone "earns" -- to free one's present from the tyranny of the future. And that is the tyranny which over 90% of the world's population have most to fear from.
Carrol