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It all depends...
I am not a blog poster by nature, and I am defintrly not trying to pick a fight, but, can't resist a comment on this note by Eco-Gen -
"And on a side note, I love his skewed perception from white/wealth privilege. Go tell a kid from the hood or trailer park, just go find a job that allows you to contribute the max to your 401k (which is now $17k/year) righhhht... . It's not impossible, but some people will never realistically have a chance to have that much disposable income and might be doing good to make that much. Not to mention what they would do with the funds chosen in that 401k and what happens with the next major market hiccup. "
Your situatuion in life is a compendium of the decisions you make ( BTW -
I lived in a trailer park for years).
If you chose "rocks & 40's", you get one result. If you chose self-improvement, morality, education and hard work - viola!
You get another result.
The tenants of western civilization (rule of law, private property, religious freedom, moral code, etc) were developed by thousands of years of hard won experience. (See - Roots of American Order by Russell Kirk)
All people in this country (for now at least) have a realistic chance for
$17K/yr of disposale income... the real question is about how it is disposed.
As an example - observe the behavior, and sucess, of many of our minority immigrants. Everyone has the same opportunity - just not the same result.
Finally - a comment on the reduction in comsumption concept. I fully agree that reduced consumption is a worthwile goal, when applied commensurate to the task.
Moving your household goods cross-country with 55/MPG efficiency would not be very effective. Possible perhaps, but not really optimal. On the other hand, moving myself to work at 35mpg is very effective, and reasonably efficient.
Once again... it all depends.
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