Life and Donuts

This is worth top-posting. Other good stuff is a page or two down.

Envy and Fear are the two deadliest sins

The President speaks all the time.  I watch little TV and listen to random bits of radio.  I'm afraid to say my consumption of real news is no better than vegetables.

But I do read Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist and solid thinker.  So when he recommended that a recent speech by the President on income inequality was note worthy I looked for it.  It turned out to be very good.

I am worried about income inequality.  I believe the chasm of hope it creates between two peoples who occupy the same country is dangerous.  This speech lays out where we are and a little about what we need to do.  Nothing will change until a major event requires power to shift.  And I'm afraid that will be near revolution in its impact and destruction.  The combination of Fear (that a family's children won't succeed) and Envy (that other children's prosperity will be unfairly earned,) is a powerful force for upheaval in a society.  

I'm sure others have studied this trajectory and know a lot more than me about the outcomes and risk.  I'm just an observer.  But I don't like what I see and it makes me afraid.