Then we [the enlightened ones] could pursue the Silver Lining hiding within

It seems Jerome Kern had a knack for finding and blending talents with composer/collaborators who were really good writers. Together they gave us a lot of songs that are hard to forget. The song “Look for the Silver Lining” is a case in point. I’ve been humming it all day. It reminds me that even when someone is beating the crap beat out me, and another Yahoo is kicking my teeth in while I’m down (not likely to happen, but possible), there is usually a good lesson to be taken away from it all, even though it may not become visible until much later. And so, it could be with Trump’s Wall of Shame.

Picture this scenario: Even as I write this, the Dems are busy putting together their “cease and desist order” (or whatever they call the legal procedure) to block Trump and his wall, and the Repubs are warming up for a quick ascendancy of the appeal paperwork so it finds its way to the Supreme Court. The faster, the better.

But what if the Dems also had a backup plan in which they chose to assemble a team of lawyers who offer only token resistance against the Wall thus helping the Supreme Court to decide in favor of Trump? Oh my! Bring out the Silver Platters for those Silver Linings. This could be the start of something big.

The Dems could “laugh a little, cry a little, until the clouds roll by a little.” OK, since I’m in a mood for taking words out of their original context, I believe it was John Kennedy who said, “Don’t get mad, get even!” Next stop for the Dems: Win the 2020 elections—not for the glory of sport, but to reap the spoils of victory. With a ruling from the Supreme Court on the books, the Dems could line up an avalanche of proclamations to circumvent Congress, each of which is clearly defensible as a clear and present danger to the entire U.S. population.

A short list follows that would be easily defensible for taking emergency actions to stop them by any sensible, caring President:

Get guns out of the hands of deranged killers
Reverse the effects of Climate Change
Accelerate Renewable Energy Development
Unrig our Election System
Reverse the consequences of Wealth Inequality, including:
--High crime rates
--Widespread Hunger
--illiteracy rates
--Surging Physical and Mental Health Issues
--Rising Obesity rates
--Shorter Life Expectancies
--Climbing Incarceration rates
--More Teen Pregnancy rates
--Elevated Suicide rates
--Lack of Employment Opportunities

Yes, with a stroke of the pen, a Democratic President could proclaim them one by one to be national emergencies, and all solvable by allocating between $4 to $12 trillion dollars from our national budgets and household wealth accumulations. That President could thus begin to direct new funds away from those at the top and into the households of those in the bottom 90 percent of American households with loans, tax rates, and education programs that give new preferential treatment to those who actually create wealth rather than to those who rely on a system tilted toward the offspring of the wealthy. He or she could effectively unrig America’s labyrinth of social and economic networks that embolden and reinforce wealth beneficiaries with social connections to bankers, corporate boards, selected colleges, class-based communities, and other exclusive networks where money flows between and among the wealthy with ease.

Now I’ll try to summarize the crux of the factual, logical, cohesive, and creative arguments against gross inequality in America.

Wealth is assets minus debts. Assets are generally limited to stocks, bonds, and real estate. Wealth inequality is the most serious economically-based scourge in America. It is the fundamental cause of all poverty issues. The top 10 percent hold $100 trillion of wealth, while the bottom 90 percent hold just $10 trillion of our wealth. That is the most severe wealth skew among all the industrialized nations on the planet. As a consequence, at least 47 million Americans live in poverty (as defined mainly by the cost of food in 1960). Realistically, 165 million Americans live in or near poverty today. This inequality is either unknown to or beyond the perceptual limits of virtually everyone, scholarly or otherwise. Moreover, those in the top 10 percent are not smarter or more industrious than others. They are primarily the beneficiaries of tax laws, inheritance laws, and passive income laws derived from their inherited ownership of stocks, bonds, and real estate. In addition, the great bulk of new wealth flows to the present holders of wealth via capital gains. Put another way, most of America’s wealth flows to the wealthy for doing nothing. The wealthy are not the entrepreneurial “movers and shakers” portrayed in fictional success stories. Example:  Sam Walton (founder of Wal-Mart) died in 1992 and left his children $23 billion tax-free. Today, they are worth more than $150 billion, still tax-free, and without lifting a finger in effort, industry, or creativity.

Conversely, nearly all other residents contribute it to America’s wealth. All therefore deserve to share in its wealth. Sharing wealth does not mean sharing wealth equally. But sharing wealth unequally likewise does not mean that wealth is unlimited. Wealth is finite, and there are definable limits as to how much anyone can amass before others start to suffer. Excessive wealth comes about at everyone else’s expense. Those who believe that all wealth must be earned, must also agree that inherited wealth is not earned wealth and that inheriting huge amounts of wealth tax-free takes from others. Tax-free inherited wealth should therefore be limited to about $5 million. All inheritances above $5 million should be subject to a progressive tax (one that gets steeper as the amount increases). Family inheritances of stocks, bonds, small businesses, farms, and real estate would all be exempt from any new taxes up to the first $5 million.  Implementing a wealth tax would not necessarily involve taking from the ultra rich and giving to all others.  It could be done by directing only a small portion of new wealth into the households of the bottom 90 percent.  The ultra wealthy would continue adding to their weatlh balance sheets.  Large banks direct most new money into the accounts of large corporations and the rich.  Credit unions and community banks direct nearly all new money into the accounts of small businesses and individuals.  Therein lies the financial solution staring at us and begging us to solve the biggest economic problem of all time!  We need to empower our central bank (the Federal Reserve) to direct more new money into community banks and credit unions, and less new money into the larger corporate banks.  The 400 resident Ph.D. economists inside the Federal Rerserve can figure out the details of precisely how to make that happen.  How to make this solution "go viral" is also well within the abilities of those who know how to spread good news.  

All societies benefit from a healthy, educated citizenry—the two best investments in ourselves and in our future that we can make. Nobody should therefore be denied available health care or an education commensurate with his or her abilities. The other conditions of poverty such as hunger, crime, murder rates, suicides, pregnancies, obesity, and unemployment are conditions that detract from our abilities to “form a more perfect union” or to “establish justice.” We therefore need to work diligently on eliminating the conditions that give rise to poverty. Children, the aged, and the mentally and physically disabled are not choices, rather they are nearly unavoidable. We need to be as generous as we can in allocating wealth to them. A person’s race, color, ethnicity, religion, and gender identity should have no bearing at all in their wealth status as long as their actions are not harmful to others. The “rule of law” must always be cradled in, not above, our fundamental values of equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and to the six purposes named in the preamble to our Constitution; namely, to form a more perfect union, establish justice, provide a national defense, promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. None of these values and purposes are ideological in nature. Indeed, this entire essay would be unnecessary if we abided by them.

Anyone who believes that the above paragraph is the definition of “socialism” needs to read its definition in the dictionary. Socialism exists when the government owns the means of production or where there is no private property. Conversely, if there should be no limits on wealth accumulation, what kind of society (intellectually, emotionally, morally, or spiritually) would we have if huge numbers sought to own all their country's wealth? That is not a rhetorical question. I challenge anyone to answer it dispassionately and with care.

We might also need to keep a small display of undesirable societal inequality artifacts on display. Among them would be depictions of greed, exploitation, and ignorance—reminiscent of the torture chambers from the Inquisitions used by church/state alliances of the 12th to 19th centuries. It would need to be visual enough such that residents, visitors, and philosophers could see, contemplate, and shudder at the consequences of hate and indifference that permeates America today. A prominent display at the Smithsonian Institution or near the base of the Statue of Liberty would do.

I am too old and I have no skills in starting or managing campaigns that disseminate information, or that  encourage action by legislators, political parties, or others in positions of authority to take action.  Readers of this simple essay are encouraged to copy it and forward it those who are in positions to do something good for themselves and others in "securing the blessings of liberty for us and our posterity."