Yet homeless people receive better healthcare in an emergency room than President Eisenhower and Nelson Rockefeller would have received in the 1950s, the average person enjoys a higher standard of living than the wealthiest person in a number of countries committed to command-and-control elements, the poorest enjoy a higher standard of living than the average person in most countries, etc.
An individual's utility should NOT be a function of the difference between their income and other people who earn more than them. If somebody has that mentality, they're beating themselves up instead of enjoying life (after all, there can only be one person who is THE richest, and even that person will have extreme implicit/explicit costs that go hand-in-hand with the extreme benefits they enjoy).
Obviously there are quite a few who are struggling and cannot enjoy themselves right now, but a defeatist attitude has never led to happiness for anybody. It is not about where we are, but about where we are going next. Things will get better. The pie is not fixed; the pie must grow, and the left-wing, defeatist mentality that is infecting our society must be stopped.
You go tell that to a single parent with two kids working three jobs in the inner city, and see what they have to say.
