Did you know that when people quote statistics about how the average family's real wage income has gone down or remained the same over the past several decades, they are not including the ever rising benefits also included in most paychecks? Add in all the healh care and retirement plan stuff, and also add back in the extra entitlement money the government steals from every paycheck to give to "poor people" and suddenly incomes have gone up considerably.

Add to that stats like only 37% of homes had color TVs in the 70's, and now 98% do. Most homes have both heat and A/C now. Most have computers and internet access. Even the poorest of homes have more "stuff" than they did a few decades ago, and far more than homes in most other countries in the world. When someone says the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, they are wrong. The rich ARE getting richer, and the poor are, too. Just not as fast, but since the rich have been the economiic drivers in capitalism for over a century, this trend benefits everyone.

You remember learning about the robber barons from the late 1800's? Super rich captains of industry, who at the time were reviled for their greed. Now we know that while they may have done some things that weren't so great (factory towns with company stores, for instance, made virtual slaves of employees), they amde more money for more people than possibly anyone in history up to that point.