“What protest groups on the Left and the Right share with less-activist middle-class Americans—the apolitical voters who often decide elections—is an abiding sense that the bond between work and reward has been broken. Huge financial rewards are given to executives who fail miserably and get fired. Debt relief programs help not only those who have fallen behind through no fault of their own but also the profligate who lived beyond their means. The list goes on: What’s inflaming voters isn’t so much inequality per se, though that’s certainly a symptom of the problem. It’s the fact that the rewards in our economic system seem increasingly divorced from American values of hard work, risk-taking, and innovation. Instead, these benefits are more and more likely to be awarded on the basis of connections and political power.”
Ron Klain in Bloomberg.com
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