> why are the poor so poor in your rich country?

Largely because of the laws of mathematics and economics. It is far easier for a middle-class person to become a millionaire than it is for a poor person to become middle class.

Why? Because those who have money to invest in a growing economy have will in general make far more money than those who don't or can't invest. And if they invest wisely, they'll eventually have enough to sustain losses that would wipe out most people, and still bounce back to make even more.

The poor are likely to stay poor because they have no opportunity to save, much less invest.

Second, wealth - even middle-class wealth - creates educational opportunities which can lead to very high-paying jobs. A recent study of multi-millionaires discovered that most of them had gotten rich, not through inheritance, but through earning $100,000/yr. and more year after year after year, spending prudently, and investing wisely (or luckily).

Third, the really poor live in drug-ridden, crime-infested neighborhoods that nobody wants to invest in. Furthermore, there's a "cycle of poverty." Because of the lack of economic opportunity, families stay poor for generations. More subtly, they become increasingly alienated from the education that might help them. Poverty encourages kids to leave school for minimum-wage jobs (or else high-paying drug-selling and prostitution jobs that make the neighborhoods worse).

If you doubt any of this, consider: without Social Security and Medicare, poverty would be even worse. But not even these giant Federal programs, which are socialistic by definition, have kept the poverty level from rising and rising. Wealth is rising and rising too, but that, in and of itself, isn't the problem.

Bottom line: Money begets money; no money begets no money.

Now wouldn't it be a lot simpler if billionaires were just "buying" Congressmen's collusion in sleazy, back-alley deals? Not that they aren't, but the real issue is economics, not bribery.