This is a piece I wrote for my seminar course. We watched a movie on inequality in America and I decided to go all out on my assignment. Not bad writing for a teenager, no? After watching Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream , I realized that I have lots to say. The move makes several good points, and many, many bad ones. In fact, not only bad points- but misleading, dishonest points that talk about half of the problem in America today. The main point of the movie can be summarized in the following sentences: There is growing inequality in America- the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor who are seeing their wages stagnate and things they need increase in cost. The rich are using their increasing wealth and converting it into political power by essentially writing the legislation and buying the votes that are needed to pass it. I will agree that the wealthy in this country have seen their wealth increase. I will also agree that some poor people in this country are struggling to find work and to put food on the table. Where the movie goes horribly wrong is in its assertion that the rich are to blame. That greed is to blame. That capitalism is to blame. That the game is now and forever will be rigged. These things are simply untrue. First and foremost, the government and the people in it are making the country favorable to the rich. We know that. But where does the blame truly lie? Is it to lie on the rich who are greedy? Or does the blame belong on the government and the people that have expanded it to the point where it can be used as a tool of coercion and force against others? Of course the rich are making policies good for them. And of course the rich got bailed out when the market crashed. But are we foolish enough to blame wealth and greed that will always be there? Or can we be responsible and put the blame on the only legal source of force in our society? The government. The government that is used as a tool by rich people to force others to do what they want. Of course, if the government lacked the power to do such things, there would be no door for the rich to get into. But the movie makes it seem that it is more reasonable to attack wealth, which will always be a part of society. Another claim is that the poor are the way they are because of the rich. That the rich have benefited at the poor's expense. In many cases, that is not true, and in the cases that it is, you must realize my earlier point- that the government is used to make that happen. The claim that the movie explicitly makes towards the end- that wealth was created, but so was poverty is laughable nonsense. The notion that there is a fixed amount of wealth in society was the main driver in economic thinking like 18th century mercantilism, which now of course, we know to completely false. This, by the way, invalidates the Monopoly example that the movie uses as the game comes with a set amount of money. Wealth is created all the time in society, and it is not a zero sum game. The rich do not have to benefit at the expense of the middle class and the poor. The only time that truly happens is when the government uses the proverbial gun to force others to pay for the rich- and that only happens in a society where the government has extensive power. Let's skip the nonsense the movie espouses about the poor and cut to the truth: the poor and the middle class are suffering in America because of the government. They are suffering because they are taxed. Income tax, Social Security tax, Medicare tax, sales tax, estate tax, property tax, capital gains tax, unemployment tax, gasoline tax, and a slew of other taxes. We drown the middle class in taxes. Then, we regulate. We regulate small businesses and corporations to death with unnecessary red tape, making the United States an unprofitable place to run business. We tax the businesses people work at and regulate them, driving up the cost of the products they sell and forcing businesses to pay people less. And this is if you graduated school and had a job! The federal government and state governments have created failing schools that boast terrible dropout rates and fail to properly educate kids. Then, the government makes it impossible for them to attend school. By subsidizing student loans, the government makes the college market less competitive and universities have no incentive to hold prices down. This is why private universities cost so much nowadays- because they are guaranteed a river of money by the government. The government in this country dooms people to fail. It places them in bad schools, puts higher education out of reach, the minimum wage makes it difficult for them to get their first job, the regulations and taxes strain the business they work at or hope to start. The government subsidizes healthcare, making health insurance expensive. The government makes it difficult to live. And then one of the movie's interviewees has the gall to say that "taxes are the price of civilization." Intellectually bankrupt drivel. This is the kind of society we get for spending more than $3.6 trillion dollars a year? With that absurd logic, then we must probably spend $13 trillion a year for decent schools and intact roads. To pretend that this tax and regulatory burden must be shouldered by the people because no other alternative exists is practically comedic material. The fact is that average people in American are crushed under the weight of the institution that governs them. That is the reality. Any rhetoric that takes away from the truth- that the government is the institution we must blame is rhetoric that puts our blame in the wrong direction. The movie talks about tax cuts that "added to the national debt." Once again, that is half of the story. A lack of tax revenue doesn't add to the debt- a lack of tax revenue then coupled with excessive spending leads to debt. Medicare Part D and two unfunded wars leads to debt. Many economic studies show that tax cuts are actually beneficial to the government because the money that is kept in the private sector is invested and saved and leads to production and jobs. Coolidge in the 20's, Kennedy in the 60's, Reagan in the 80's, and Bush in the 2000's cut taxes, but overall after the cuts took effect, saw federal receipts increased. The movie talks about the market crash in 2007, but fails to mention that the private banks did what they did because of what the Federal Reserve was offering them. The Federal Reserve was giving them free money to bet with, and thus, they were not careful. In fact, they were reckless. But we put the blame on the banks and the people in Washington who really caused the crash get the last laugh. The public is still blissfully unaware that the government was the driving force in the economic collapse that cost the average family so much. The movie also run contrary to most facts when it comes to mobility. Treasury Department studies show that over the past decades, many of the rich in America have fallen out of the 1%. The thing is- that 1% statistic will always be there, and thus, people will always be able to divert attention to it. The 1% today is mostly not what is was some years ago, but to many people, the 1% never changes because the number stays the same. Treasury Department studies also show that the poor in America often don't stay poor for very long. Many of them are able to lift themselves out of poverty. This is why it is so nonsensical when the movie makes poverty out to be an inescapable condition, and thus, government is required to step in and help. Since President Johnson started the war on Poverty, we have spent $22 trillion dollars. And what is the result? We still have more than 40 million Americans below the poverty line and according to progressives, we still need extensive federal involvement in the economy to maintain fairness. The problem is that the government will never be able to eliminate poverty. The government is inefficient and wasteful, but there is a bigger point- all of the jobs that are involved in administering aid from the government are jobs that depend on poverty's existence- if the poverty goes away, so do all of the jobs that were involved in administering aid. We have parts of the government that have a vested interest in keeping people poor! It's like expecting a tobacco company to mount an aggressive anti-smoking campaign! The government is not the solution. It's the problem. The movie talks about opportunity and how we need the government to keep it for the rest of us. But what would happen if the government got out of the way? What if we eliminated Social Security and Medicare and federal income taxes on everyone? Many people think that American society as we know it would end. But the fact of the matter is that all we would have to do to balance the complete elimination of the federal income tax for all citizens would be to put government spending levels back to where they were in 1995. Is it really that hard to go back to 1995 for federal spending? We could see every American take home 100% of their yearly income. They could keep it all! To save or spend or do what they saw fit! What if we eliminated the taxes and some of the regulations the business they work at has to be bothered with? What if their small business, or the small business they work at or the large corporation they work at got to keep 100% of it earned? Then the employees could actually get to see their wages increase? What if the Federal Reserve didn't manipulate the money supply to create booms and busts? What is the Federal Reserve actually cut down inflation and every American saw their dollar increase in value? What if we had competition in public schools where kids could choose where they went? To create competition and improve education? What if the federal government stopped the federal student loan program and competition between colleges increased so college could be affordable? Then more people will get degrees, get better jobs, be smarter and would even be qualified for the science and technology jobs the movie talked about! What if we had a government that allowed everyone to pursue their own interests unhindered and we could do as best as we could for each other by ourselves without being robbed or manipulated by the government? Don't you think that if we had true freedom again, everyone would have more opportunity? And opportunity to get a good education, a good job, buy a house that isn't inflated in value and have kids that won't cost him a quarter of a million dollars to raise? Don't you think the average person would be richer? Better off? Happier?! I think they would. That America is possible, but it starts with rejecting the voices we hear, like that of the movie that tells us that the government is our Godsend. That the state is our savior. It is not. Freedom is our Godsend, and if we have the courage and responsibility to grant it to ourselves , America will be a place of opportunity once more.



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Opportunity in America

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