Barack Obama: The United States Was ‘Founded on Inequality’

Obama continued with a discussion about the wealthy, asserting after a family obtained enough money to eat, buy a house, send their kids to college, and take a vacation once in a while, additional financial wealth would not make people happy.

He acknowledged that he now had more money than he ever had in his life, and claimed he could not spend it all if he tried.

“It’s not money that is making me happy, but we teach ourselves that our measure of success is the more we have, the harder we hang onto it, the better we must be, the higher our status is,” he said.

Obama said that the concept of wealth and status in the United States was what made societies less equal.

“We have to redesign our minds to say that we’re at our most powerful and influential when we’re able to help others,” he concluded.

Obama clarified that he still supported the concept of capitalism but called for a “revolution of values” to create a better, more equal society that was more environmentally stable.

“It’s not going to do us much good to have really wonderful apps and great virtual reality when the actual reality of the planet is getting hotter, and the oceans are rising, and the forests are getting cut down, and we can’t breathe,” he said.

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