Which party is better at addressing income inequality?

This is a self-defeating mentality

Couldn't you apply that level of dedication to your finances, for instance?

 Wages for ironworkers (my trade) is $29 and some change for a journeyman ironworker, last I checked.  That is still poor wages here in Phoenix. 

So I told my boys to learn a trade but don't limit your education of business to only in the field/shop. Learn how the WHOLE trade works.  Estimating, project management, marketing, etc.  The longshoreman needs to do his research and notice his pay ceiling.  What can he do to earn more?  Become a foreman? Become a manager?  Start his own?  All of this will require this man to learn and to discipline himself.  If he is not aware of / care for his finances, then these will not be something on his mind.  Then one day he will find himself on the streets because he didn't look ahead, because he didn't care about his financial future.

Contrary to popular belief, not all people have same abilities.

The only source I found on this was a self-reporting survey, so I think you might want to lower your estimate. It wouldn't surprise me if some of these people were reporting as "middle-class" falsely either mistakenly or because they wanted to feel better about their achievements.

But we are not talking abilities, we are talking about mindsets

Change the mindset and you will achieve more.

What do you think would (I hate to say this, but WILL) happen to your wages as an ironworker when someone invents a reliable machine that does what you do? And your boss thinks "I'm paying David $29 an hour plus benefits to do what this $75,000 machine will do"? Because a rich person thinks "Sorry David. You're out." 

This sounds good on the surface, but it sneakily equates being rich / financially stable (THIS may be a better term to debate over rather than "rich") with some sort of virtue. That's just not the case, I'm afraid.

And in this particular very real example (a labor action at the docks is still pending after being averted in Q4 of 2024), there are less and less foremen, less and less managers, why? Because when you have 2 machines reliably doing the job that forty people did, how many managers and foremen do you need now? Start his own longshoreman business?? Like open his own port?? I mean theoretically okay but in reality, how can he do something like that on his (let's use your) $29 / hr salary? 

Would it be fair to say that you think the way things are SUPPOSED to work are such that a financially stable person should be someone who started out at the bottom and just worked his or her way to financial stability, and this should be the preferred path to wealth, the most respectable?

Not all people have same mindset.

I cant change the mindset.

Not so.  Your mindset has changed many times and you have not realized it.  The best way to change a mindset is to decide what you want to change and to change the HABITS that are formed from those mindsets.  One habit you could start with is your self talk about how much you can't change.  Stop the tape that plays in your mind and change the message.

Are you saying that having a lot of money is UN-virtuous?

No, but I figure that most wealthy people come from humble beginnings

I would say any path to wealth is respectable as long as it's a moral way to do things.

It didnt change to being rich.

It needs to change from being poor.

Take a few things at a time and over a year, you will be a different person, hopefully for the better.

Not remotely, at least not inherently. But this once again makes me want to understand how much is "a lot".

What are you basing this figuring on? I am not saying this doesn't happen, but how many of the top, say, 2% of wealth in this country do you think built it from the ground up? Zuckerberg maybe? 

How do you feel about inheritance tax?

I posted to BK earlier about millionaires in the USA

It needs to change from being poor.

It cant.

Impossible.

Can you explain why it can't?

 I would say someone at $250K can live very comfortable and have money to sock away for a leisurely retirement.

 I would say a person that has a million dollar portfolio is wealthy and is on the fast track to retirement if invested correctly.

But do you have a threshold of wealth that would cross the line of morality?  

I think its terrible.  The money has already been taxed and anything passed down to others upon the death of someone should be the wealth of those people.  It a double tax of the monies.  If I save up a nest egg for my children and grand children because I worked hard to do it, why are my children punished for my hard work?  It's uncle Sam getting his dirty hands on more of American's money to blow like a drunken sailor.

 It's at the point where you cannot spend it, literally,

THis is strange, because if all it takes to be rich is to think like a rich person, then your children and grandchildren aren't going to learn this lesson that you seem to value.

You mean at $250K per year, right? And the 1M is already in the stock market, correct? 

I do. It's at the point where you cannot spend it, literally, where it does nothing for the economy at all. I think we have a fundamental and likely irreconcilable difference in philosophy here, so I won't argue about it, we're only going to talk past each other. 

THis is strange, because if all it takes to be rich is to think like a rich person, then your children and grandchildren aren't going to learn this lesson that you seem to value. They will, though, think like a rich person: born on third base thinking they hit a triple, figuring they're just smarter or better than the poor people who are too stupid and lazy to think themselves out of poverty.

What did they do to earn this advantage, after all? I'm obviously a big proponent of the inheritance tax, but not at a "I own a small steelworking shop" level. I don't want a landed gentry in this country, and without the inheritance tax it seems impossible to avoid. 

This often happens, and it follows to apply the eternal adage that a fool and their money are soon parted.

I actually would like to hear this philosophy where more than needed or more than possible to spend riches will be considered immoral.

I would think a lot of the whole "rich is bad" and "poor mentality" stems from this philosophy.  

I think there are proud rich people who look down on the poor because they are so smart and I also believe there are proud poor people who look down on the rich because they are so vile as to have so much money.

  As for a landed Gentry, I get what is wanted to be avoided, but the ultra rich really don't pay taxes since the tax laws are made to help them too.  Imposing a tax on them would not work since they will always figure a way around it.  It will just bite people like you and me in the butt.

As for ultra rich, keep in mind that there would never have been a Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Walmart etc without these guys creating these things and making billions of dollars from it.

what I'm arguing against is hoarding wealth. 

So you want a society of all grasshoppers and no ants, we get it bro.