Rising
tides no longer lift all yachts.
By
In the spirit of holiday harmony and goodwill toward all, I say
it’s time for you working stiffs to extend your hands in a gesture of
solidarity with America’s millionaires.
Why? Because we now share a common cause: inequality.
You don’t hear much about it, but millionaires are suffering a
wealth gap, too. And it’s having a depressing impact on both their level of
consumption and their psychological well-being.
While it’s true that millionaires are still full members of the
1-percent club, that generalization overlooks the painful fact that mere millionaires
today are ranked as “lesser 1-percenters.”
They don’t dwell in the same ZIP codes as the über-rich few, who
constitute the uppermost one-hundredth of the 1-percenters. Their wealth starts
in the hundreds of millions and spirals up into the billions.
For example, have you checked the yacht market recently? In case
you missed it, sales of your 100-to-150-footers are down by as much as 50
percent from 2008. That’s just one indicator of the hidden suffering being
endured by the merely rich.
In this same time period, however, yacht sales of your
300-footers — which can cost well over $200 million — are at all-time highs. As
a New York Times wealth columnist noted, “For decades, a rising tide lifted all
yachts. Now it is mainly lifting mega-yachts.”
Imagine how this makes people with only a few million dollars
feel.
So let’s reach out to comfort our downcast brothers and sisters
who are quite rich but may be feeling poor.
Tell them, “We’re all in this inequality fight together.” And
invite them to come to the next rally in your area to raise America’s minimum
wage above the poverty level.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is
a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the
populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. OtherWords.org.