There's a chart I saw recently
that I can't get out of my head.
A Harvard business professor and economist
asked more than 5000 Americans
how they thought wealth was distributed
in the United States.
This is what they said they thought it was.
Dividing the country into 5 rough groups
of the top, bottom, and middle three 20%,
they asked people how they thought
the wealth of this country was divided.
Then he asked them what they thought
was the ideal distribution, and 92%,
that's at least 9 out of 10 of them,
said it should be more like this
in other words, more equitable than they think it is.
That fact is telling, admittedly, the notion
that most Americans know that the system
is already skewed unfairly.
What's most interesting to me is
the reality compared to our perception.
The ideal is as far removed from our perception
of reality, as the actual distribution is from
what we think exists in this country.
So, ignore the ideal for a moment.
Here's what we think it is again,
and here is the actual distribution,
shockingly skewed.
Not only do the bottom 20% and the next 20%,
the bottom 40% of Americans,
barely have any of the wealth --
it's hard to even see them on the chart --
but the top 1% has more of the country's wealth
than 9 out of 10 Americans believe
the entire top 20% should have.
Mindblowing.
But let's look at it another way
because I find this chart kind of difficult
to wrap my head around.
Instead, let's reduce the 311 million Americans
just to a representative 100 people.
It's simple. Here they are:
Teachers, coaches, firefighters,
construction workers, engineers, doctors,
lawyers, some investment bankers,
a CEO, and maybe a celebrity or two.
Now, let's line them up according to their wealth,
poorest people on the left, wealthiest on the right,
a steady row of folks, based on their net worth.
We'll color-code them like we did before,
based on which 20% quintile they fall into.
Now let's reduce the total wealth of the U.S.,
which was roughly 54 trillion dollars in 2009
to this symbolic pile of cash,
and let's distribute it among our 100 Americans.
Well, here's socialism, all the wealth of the nation
being distributed equally -- we all know
that won't work
We need to encourage people to work,
and work hard, to achieve that
good old American dream
and keep our country moving forward.