The graphic here is the famous “Priority of Needs” chart. Basically, people look to climb the pyramid by meeting their basic needs for survival and then move up the pyramid depending how the need of each step in the pyramid is reached.

An Illustration: If you don’t have food for the week, not having an IRA does not seem like a big sacrifice.

Those at the higher steps of the pyramid often have trouble relating to the mind-set of those who are living on the lower steps of the pyramid.

People have asked me why I think the country is so split on opinions. I think the redistribution of where people fall on this Priority of Needs gives us a clue. More people are on the bottom two steps now than when I graduated from high school in 1976.

I am committed to the theory that the nation can’t move forward until we decrease the numbers of people who remain on the bottom two steps.