Wealth can be either a good or bad thing - good, in that America has enough wealth in the economy to support reasonably good lives for everyone, but bad, in that greed sometimes sets in and some interests hoard the wealth until the economy gets top-heavy and falls over like an unpruned tree.
The parable of the unpruned tree.
In the neighborhood, there was a very large and beautiful tree. That tree had stood for many a year, withstanding the cold of winter and the droughts of summer, surviving hail and flood, wind and scorching sun. The tree provided shade for everyone in the neighborhood. It also dropped seeds in the autumn that could be used to plant other trees in other neighborhoods.
For many years, the people of the neighborhood worked together to prune the tree when it overgrew. They knew that a tree that goes unpruned is weaker than a pruned tree. For a long time, the people of the neighborhood each took their turns pruning the tree.
Then one day someone said, I don't have time to prune the tree this year, even though it's my turn, because I'm going to vacation in Bali. But, I have a great idea. Let's collect some money and pay a tree service to prune the tree each year. Then anybody can go to Bali anytime they want. The neighborhood agreed. Many of them had never been to Bali, and it sounded wonderful. Some of them, secretly, didn't like to have to prune the tree, either.
So a tree service from another neighberhood was hired to prune the tree every year.
Many years later, everybody had been to Bali, and they all had loved it!
Meanwhile, the company hired to prune the tree decided to diversify. They quit pruning the tree, and instead installed swings on many of the branches of the tree so the people of the neighborhood could buy them and swing all day long. There were not enough branches low enough to the ground for everyone in the neighborhood to swing on, so the tree company built a ladder up to higher branches, and eventually all the branches had swings and all the people in the neighborhood bought swings.
No one saw that the tree was not being pruned, because the more branches there were, the more swings there were. Everyone was happy. They had a tree, some swings and winter vacations to Bali.
Then a storm blew into the neighborhood. It was stronger than the average storm, and the wind whipped the top-heavy tree mercilessly. Soon the swings in the high branches were torn by the wind from the branches and blown into the ocean next to the neighborhood. Then, the top-heavy tree that had not been pruned in many years blew over, breaking the trunk in two.
Now, the neighbors needed to use stakes and ropes to hold the tree up, and the only business qualified to do it was the tree company that had stopped trimming the tree and started building swings instead. The neighbors had to go together to pay the tree doctors to try to put the tree together so it could stand on its own. Ultimately, the best the tree doctor could do was to cut off all the branches, and trim the tree down to the ground so it could begin growing again. There were no branches on which to build swings. There was no shade.
The neighbors discovered none of the tree companies in the world had trimmed ANY trees, because it was more fun and allowed better profit to build swings on the branches of the unpruned trees, and sell the swings to people of the neighborhoods of the world.
Everyone owed the tree company money for their swings, and they owed a lot of money to the Bali Vacation company, too. The tree company had no customers, because there were no trees upon which to build swings.
Finally one of the neighbors said, "remember when we used to take turns pruning our tree? Things were much better then." The other neighbors disagreed, demanding the Tree Company plant and grow a new, faster growing tree, and to put new swings on it as soon as possible.
The owners of the tree company went to Bali.
The first neighbor said again, let us plant our own tree, tend it and prune it, and one day we will have a fine tree that we all love to sit under in its shade.
And, that's what they did.