It's one thing to recognize that the gap between the rich and everybody else is growing like a cancer; it's another thing to come up with useful solutions.
Interpretation
Recognizing social issues is important, but finding practical solutions is even more critical.
Molly Ivins highlights the importance of not only acknowledging the widening gap between the wealthy and the rest of society but also emphasizes the necessity of actively seeking effective solutions to address this growing inequality. It underscores the need for constructive action rather than mere awareness.
In practice
In a speech on economic reform, one could use this quote to emphasize the need for solutions.
Racists seem obsessed by the idea that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in America - are somehow getting away with something, sneaking goodies that should be for Americans. You can always avoid this problem by having no social services. This is the refreshing Texas model, and it works a treat.
Populism is the simple premise that markets need to be restrained by society and by a democratic political system. We are not socialists or communists, we are proponents of regulated capitalism and, I might add, people who have read American history.
We should all laugh more at our elected officials - it's good for us and good for them.
Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.
Imagine wasting all that perfectly good anger on paranoid fantasies. Not since Emily Litella got upset about "Soviet jewelry" has there been such a waste of anger. You will notice a certain theme to these Emily Litella Moments. Behind them all is a touching faith that someone, somewhere is actually in charge of what's happening - a proposition I beg leave to doubt.
All anyone needs to enjoy the state legislature is a strong stomach and a complete insensitivity to the needs of the people. As long as you don't think about what that peculiar body should be doing and what it actually is doing to the quality of life in Texas, then it's all marvelous fun.
Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.
Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine - the special pleading of selfish interests.
People.. were poor not because they were stupid or lazy. They worked all day long, doing complex physical tasks. They were poor because the financial institution in the country did not help them widen their economic base.
When people talk of the economy being strong, they don't seem to feel that they, too, are better off.
With neoliberalism discredited and austerity failed, we need to rewrite the rules of the economy once again. But this time in the right way. We need rules that focus on long-term economic growth, and the only kind of sustainable prosperity is shared prosperity.
We have designed a capitalist system wrong. We assume human beings are one-dimensional, all they do is make money, so we've created a money-centric world.
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