Pass down values every day through your actions, your words and your time with your kids.

Life is graded on the curve. It's not how big you are, how strong you are, how smart you are. It's how good you are at the things that count relative to the people around you.

It is no exaggeration to say that rising inequality has driven many of the 99 percent into a financial ditch. It also helped spawn the housing bubble that gave us the financial crisis of 2008, the lingering effects of which have forced many OWS protesters to try to launch their careers in by far the most inhospitable labor market we've seen since the Great Depression. Even those recent graduates who manage to find jobs will suffer a lifelong penalty in reduced wages.

Only the federal government has the power to spend beyond its current revenue. It shouldn't do that when the economy is at full employment. But it's an essential step for an economy mired in recession.

When the economic pie grows larger, it's always possible for everyone to have a larger slice than before. So it's really in all of our interest to make the economic pie larger by eliminating waste whenever and wherever possible.

We could curtail private spending by several trillion dollars a year without requiring painful sacrifices from anyone. That would be more than enough to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and eliminate government indebtedness once and for all.

Rising inequality hasn't really accomplished anything of value for its ostensible beneficiaries, the top one percent. They've all built bigger mansions and staged more lavish parties. But in so doing, they've simply raised the bar that defines what's considered adequate in these categories.