Since when have the exceptions to the rule become become what people consider the norm .?

Just how many Warren Buffets and Bill Gates do we have room for .

In 300 million people we have just 1000 billionaires and just under 300,000 millionaires .

Thats right folks plenty of room at the top if you just get off your butt and do something .

You know like Donald Trump does .

Meet with architects and engineers and bankers and barrow $250 million to build a small office building . Then keep just 1% and complain that profit margins are so tight you wonder why you even get up in the morning and do it .

The rich always whine about how hard they have it .

So why is it 200 plus million people think that some day the will become rich .

1% will be rich 9% will be very comfortable 20% will work hard and save and have more then most folks dream of and 70% will get up everyday for the rest of their lives and head into a job they have that pays the rent and keeps food on the table .

Lets not help them with medical care or better wages .
Keep the republicans in office .

You make excellent points, but 95 % of the posters here are younguns who have yet to experience the realities of the American Dream.

They all think that that they ARE the exceptional ones who will be the lucky 10%.

They see a movie like Gerry Mcguire and think that that is all there is to making a million bucks.

Good to hear some common sense for a change ...don't be put off by the flak that I expect that I will see when I hit the "submit" Button.

One of the great American traits is to strive to do better..economically, educationally,and mentally!!
let us not lose focus on that and accept welfare like this so called stimulus pay check that will do absolutely do nothing for the economy!
I will take mine to Reno and run it up to some real money!!

Basic animal psychology. It's what keeps the casinos in business. Nobody looks at the throngs of people that lost, they look at the one guy who won.

Capitalism works the same way. Which is not simply criticism; it is the strength of the system.

Of course such an effective motivator can also be greatly abused, and is. But the people will never be unaffected by it.
You might as well expect lab rats to stop working for the occasional peanut.

People are not rewarded for hard work, or the factory worker who never leaves his machine all day would be at the top.
People are not rewarded for their brains, or the people at the top would be geniuses.
People are rewarded for taking as much as possible from all the poorer people
Bill Gates had a "stolen" product which he sells at an exorbitant price.
If people were paid according to the value they put in, the world would be upside down.
Did I mention luck, family, etc
Sadly, we like to think it was all our hard work

The why to make it is not to go into debt, because others control you than!

Quit listening to the news, like they really know , the reality of the world and if they do do you really think they will be able to broadcast it?

Now befre you answer that remember you let them call you a consumer, at least the communist called each other commanders!

It started with Ronald Regan. Vote rich and you'll get rich. What a crock. Look at the widening income gap! No one wants to admit what they are:POOR.

The Republicans are and always have been a part of tricle down economics that is no benefit to that 70% you mentioned. Between that and the disaster in Iraq I will never vote Republican.

No wonder they have to resort to 'god' and other wedge issues in EVERY election cycle.

So you want 301,000 people to pay for 300,000,000 peoples health care? What do you do when they go broke or leave the country?

I am part of that group that gets up and goes to work I will not be rich unless I win the lottery. The idea of "free" health care sounds good but I know what the reality would be. We would be signing our lives over to the government who would decide what care we could get and who would get it. To me that is very scary because I do know how to get money, my conscience just feels better when I work for it, but to be told that i can not get care even if I pay for it just does not set well with me.

Mr. Lava - When you act like them then I will call you what you are. The liberal agenda is in direct opposition to our constitution which I happen to like. If you do not want to live in a country that has the standards set out by our constitution you are free to find another, What you are not going to be allowed to do is change what this country was founded to be without a fight.

Because reverse-Robin Hood ethics is mentioned in the bible, and not in a way that suggests it will get a person into Heaven, so it has to be reinterpreted. People just can't ackowledge the fact that getting "rich" requires either several generations to do so, or stealing from the poor and giving to the rich, to make them richer.

People who don't like to change things, or acknowledge change has taken place like to cling to their old fantasies that a person can work hard, save mone, start themself a business and live the American dream.
Well in reality, that isn't going to happen in a Walmart community. Or in any communnity that welcomes large chain stores that import their products from China.
The only place the American dream happen anymore, is either the exceptions to the general rule as you mention, or in the black market drug business.