Setting Unachievable Goals By Using Moving Goalposts

At the Congressional Black Caucus dinner this year, President Obama said: "We must make this country a place where anyone who works hard can earn their way into the middle class, and until we do, we can't let up and we can't rest."

 Well, there will never be any rest, because the game is rigged. Of course people who want to remake the world never admit that things are good enough, because then what would they do with their time?

If you compare standard of living of even the poorest fifth of Americans to middle class Americans in the 19th century, we arrived. Everyone is middle class -- actually, everyone is rich -- because everyone lives better than a middle class person in the 19th century.

But we judge poverty and the "middle class" relatively. Since there will always be a poorest fifth, there will alway be "poor" people to agitate for.

It never ends.