My name is Philip Verges, and this is my story. I am not sharing my story because it is unique or exceptional. While my graduation from West Point, service in the Army, work at the CIA, time on a UN agency board, and founding of a high tech company, let alone being the subject of an FBI investigation, might all together suggest the makings of an exceptional story, I don’t believe any of those things are what make my story important or interesting. Everyone who reads my story will, sooner or later, have at least one “me too” moment. Those moments are why I am sharing my story.

I am sharing my story in a search to find and rally the power of We – We the People. I grew up and came of age in the era surrounding America’s Bicentennial and somehow, as we enter the era of America’s Semiquincentennial, hope for the future of America has become forlorn. In the face of a great personal adversity closely connected to the clouds gathering over America’s future, I am resistant to the idea of surrender.

Mr. Fink suggests people are saving too much and not investing enough. I otherwise argue that disposable or discretionary income is the problem – the vast majority of people simply don’t have enough income to set any aside for investing.

The disparity between an elite few benefiting from the U.S. investment markets and everyone else screams that the rules, practices, policies and habits governing the U.S. investment market are not working. The game needs to change.

Capitalism works best when it works for everybody.

There has long been a movement to stick up for the rights of workers in exchange for their contributions to capitalism. Beyond the multitude of mechanisms to protect minimum wages, adequate benefits and safe work environments, today, 35% of private companies and 43 percent of public companies include employee stock ownership programs as a component of compensation. Perhaps it is time to add consumers to the capitalist debate over stock ownership.

The wealth of billionaires today is not driven by corporate profits. It’s driven by corporate equity value – the value of stock ownership.

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk were billionaires as a result of their founding stock ownership in Amazon and Tesla well before either Amazon or Tesla ever turned a profit.

They are certainly not the only individuals to become billionaires without first (or ever) delivering a profit. Mark Cuban sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in Yahoo stock. At the time, Broadcast.com was losing $16 million on $22 million in sales. Yahoo ended up shutting down the acquired services of Broadcast.com.

The US economy today is driven by Citizen-Consumers. Seventy percent of the US GDP comes from consumer spending.

93% percent of all US stocks are held by the wealthiest 10%. The bottom 50% wealth-wise only own one percent of all stocks.

The inequity in stock ownership is the source of America’s wealth divide.

The strength of the US economy depends on all Citizen-Consumers to continue purchasing groceries, cars, houses, telephones, computers, pet supplies, furniture, clothing and on and on. Yet, no allowance has been made to ensure all Citizen-Consumers have an equal opportunity to benefit from the economic value their spending generates.

Addressing the stock ownership inequality in America is essential to sustaining America’s greatness which is founded on a collective belief in individual self-determination.