The problem I have with the talk is that he's focusing on one narrow part of the economy and then using that as a proxy for the whole economy. It's also obvious he doesn't look at some of the negatives related to income inequality. For example, high levels of income inequality correlate with high levels of political instability and high levels of corruption. Countries with high income inequality are rarely gleaming examples of economic efficiency. They're often not very nice places to live. Countries with low levels of inequality (like much of Northern Europe) are nice places to live.<p>As Paul understands that we're all connected (you can't pull on one part of the bed-sheet with out pulling on the rest of the bed-sheet), he hasn't made the connection that if one side of the bed is dragged into being a shit-hole, the rest of the bed will eventually be a shit-hole, as it's all connected. In South America, for example, kidnapping is such a huge problem. The effect is to make these places less nice for the wealthy as well as the poor.<p>A lot of times the policies that reduce inequality aren't kill all the start-ups/crazy take all the money from rich people policies. Often their simple things that don't take a ton of money like head start funding, lower the cost of post-secondary education and training, and providing certain basic services like health care. What the US has done is to look at balancing the budget by reducing taxes on the very wealthy (upward pressure on income inequality) while taking money from programs that reduce equality.<p>There's a belief that most people who are poor are not working. Actually, many of them work quite hard. But washing machines work hard, too. Simply working hard doesn't get you ahead. In some cases there's a fair amount of luck involved. I sometimes look at the startup economy a little bit like pulling the slot lever. You can do everything right, but a lot of things still have to go well (some of which are outside of your control) before you cash out. Paul rightfully calls this risk, meaning that it's not guaranteed that an investor will get his pay out and it's far from guaranteed a founder will get rich. But it's bizarre to think keeping the US from sliding into an economic hell-hole will somehow destroy that slot-machine economy.