Pictured is Mike Hsu, the Chief Executive of Kimberly-Clark. Hsu was mentioned in an article in the Saturday-Sunday, March 21-22, 2026, edition of The Wall Street Journal. That article was largely focused on Huggies, a very popular brand of diapers, which are manufactured by Kimberly-Clark. Probably, that article is blocked by a "paywall," meaning that only subscribers will be able to make use of the link.
No matter! In fact, I am not really wanting to talk about either Huggies or Hsu. My purpose in this blog posting is to comment on the following statement contained in the article I just linked:
The wealthiest 10% of Americans account for almost half of consumer spending.
Normally, given what I am pretty sure is a resident "paywall," clicking that "acount for" link in the quoted paragraph (that link furnished by The Wall Street Journal, not me) is unlikely actually to take you to the article referenced. However, I am told that the following "gift link" should get you there. If it does, you will be able to read an article headlined as follows: "The U.S. Economy Depends More Than Ever On Rich People."
The point of my blog posting is to make note of the fact that "rich people" are getting more than what might be called their "fair share" of the economic benefits provided by the American economy. Our economy is supported, and made prosperous, by everyone. Thus, I suggest, the overall benefits should be flowing to everyone. Instead, the benefits of our economy are increasingly sequestered by and made available only to the rich - and as The Journal notes, this is increasingly true.
Various laws have had this result. As we all pay our taxes (hopefully, you made the April 15th deadline), let's think about how we could change those laws and solve that "affordability" and "abundance" crisis that has become such big news.
Just producing "more" won't do it. Other policies will!
We do need to change the laws, however, to change what's happening. In case you might have missed this, that is what "politics" is actually all about.
When I say that we "Live In A Political World," I am trying to suggest that we should be developing and using our political power to make sure that our world is actually a world we want to live in!
A world in which economic "abundance" is fairly shared, not sequestered by the wealthy, should be a top priority.
Oxfam reports that "According to a 2021 White House study, the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the U.S. paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2 percent." I would be willing to wager that it's even less than that now. I would argue that our democracy has really been an oligarchy for many years. Our "representatives" tend to represent the wealthy who support them, rather than the folks who elect them.
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