WHO DEFINES AND DESCRIBES THE "HAVE-NOTS"

All banter aside, one topic comes up that needs to be stressed.  There is an assumption that those who work in and are familiar with investments are the ones who deserve rewards for their risk-taking.  I don't disagree with that, but then there is a fundamental failure by many to understand other kinds of risk and other kinds of risk-takers who "invest" with a different kind of capital. There are artists who often forgo more profitable lines of income for what they believe enhances, informs and enlightens--they are not poor schnooks who couldn't get it together, but people who have a vision and risk their own financial security for what they believe contributes not only to their own enlightenment but to the richness of life for others.  There are teachers who are highly-functioning, well-educated people who work with the underprivileged or the challenged or simply with students exposed to the lowest common denominator "business plan" version of education out there today in order to bring them into the world with some sense of purpose, hope, initiative, dreams.  None of these artists, teachers, and dreamers expects that their efforts will garner a financial windfall, and indeed, not all of their efforts are monetary or artistic successes, but the reward of contribution to the society is the primary goal, and the occasional success of these social goals is gratifying.  Still, many of the rules created by the business class and the PAC-bought politicians not only penalize these kinds of contributors but seeks to nullify the growth of opportunities both for artists and the future leaders of America they teach or help to shape.  They lump artists and teachers into some kind of "loser" category, and penalize their visions by keeping affordable healthcare out of reach, driving the cost of dwellings up, and reducing the availability of societal services down.  When faced with accusations of inequity, the conservatives immediately point to the handfuls who abuse the system parasitically, without any real examination of whom they seek to penalize.  The "have-nots" are easier to disregard when they are faceless and dismissed--less guilt involved.  When one is condescendingly lectured by a fiscal conservative about the splendors of financial risk deserving all the rewards or told by the politicians who court them that all "waste" will be eliminated so their constituents can make more and more money, there is something vitally wrong, since our leaders need to represent the interests of all--THAT is what our founders sought, not the greatest control and power in the hands of the few, and those who hide behind this flag-waving falsehood are merely trying to divert attention--this is the land of opportunity for all who participate in all ways, not just for the privileged few.