I noticed the graphic about CEO salary increases and wanted to share that this is a primary difference in USA and Japanese.  Their CEO salaries are not nearly as inequitable as they are in the USA.

@vexations - It's merely an illustration, not actually measuring out Texas' or Washington's actual worth. It's merely representative by size.

@TheTheologiansCafe - i'm far from jealous.  i have no desires to be rich, because i'm not interested in having more money than i need to live comfortably.  but i do believe that certain things should be offered to everyone equally regardless of income.  education and health care come to mind first.  and obviously, it's no longer as easy to go from poor to rich as it used to be.  if it were, low- and middle-class incomes would have risen at the same rate as upper-class incomes.  actually, it's becoming more common for middle-class adults to drop down to the lower class.  

Diversity not equality governs our universe along with cause and effect.

Likewise the governing principle in politics is equality of liberty, not equality of income.

In a free society like America's all a person has to do is put down any desired figure on paper, say $10,000,000 and then go out and earn it. So income inequality in America is a reflection of the diversity of ambition that is completely normal in any human population.

A government that is strong enough to determine equality of resources is a tyranny that turns it's people into serfs. And that is the type of government that has plagued mankind until America was designed and built by the Founding Fathers.

@TheTheologiansCafe - Twenty somethings won't have the opportunity to work hard and get rich. We have to get lucky. Whether you can afford food shouldn't be a lottery.

@DEISENBERG - $50,000 is the top 10% these days. And there is nothing stopping you from doing any better except the limitations you place upon yourself. 

Dan is just trolling. Nothing more, nothing less. Don't take him so seriously, all.

@TheTheologiansCafe - this would make sense if it weren't for the following facts: (1) hard work doesn't equate to wealth or success; (2) many rich people inherited their wealth or a significant portion of their wealth; (3) jealousy isn't the issue, equity is the issue; (4) racism, sexism, etc. prevent many people from experience wealth that is proportionate to their "hard work". For example, the highest paid individual at my old hospital was not the world-class neurosurgeon who was on call 24 hours a day, worked 110 hours a week, and went to school for 2 decades; it was an administrator who barely graduated college and did virtually nothing but play golf with alumni and attend fundraising dinners. 

Why is the government creating policies that permit executive pay skyrocket at an unparalleled rate compared to the income of 99.9% of Americans? That's the issue. There is no defense for it - there is no evidence executives are working harder, creating more wealth, or doing anything that warrants their increased pay other than effectively controlling legislators (which is inherently anti-democratic and against the original intent of the Founding Fathers, the people many conservatives profess to love).   

Anyways, the conservative desire to idolize the rich and turn a blind eye to their many sins makes absolutely no sense. For example, it's an undeniable fact that the rich are primarily responsible for the economic collapse (bankers, wall street investors, and, to a lesser extent, politicians). Not "black welfare mamas," illegal immigrants, or any of the other asinine scapegoats conservatives have concocted over the years to avoid making obvious realizations about the world we live in. It  makes even less sense when you consider the conservative aversion to "elites" (who are more elitist than the wealthy executives?).

This belief system is not based on fact or logic, but the selfish and infantile belief that, one day, they (the conservative true believer) will enter the ranks of the rich. Good luck combating the infrastructure the wealthy elite have constructed to prevent this from happening (e.g., monopolies, contractual non-compete clauses, etc.). Some of us actually work with/know these people, so we know how depressingly naive this belief system is. 

@PrisonerxOfxLove - I earned quite a bit more than $50,000 per year, but my father worked much harder than I did and he never earned anywhere near $50,000 per year.  He didn't work any less hard, I wasn't smarter than he was - but I was a lot luckier.  There were guys in my company who worked as hard as I did, but they never became CEO.

@TheTheologiansCafe - The Horatio Alger stories are fiction.  Get a clue.  The 1% are mostly born into it, there's no work involved.

@PrisonerxOfxLove - Imagine how successful my father and I would have been if only we had taken your class.  May I ASSUME YOU ARE WEALTHY?

@Asunderfrom - my point was that a CEO is paid mostly in stock options, which are not taxed the same way as income (something directly related to how hard they work).  if a CEO's work really is that valuable, why pay them in stock?  why not let their income reflect their hard work more accurately, assuming they do work hard?  

@UTRow1 - You have just admitted to being a hypocrite is all.  Put your money where your mouth is and give your wealth away to the poor. All you rich libs need to show us how it's really done.