Posted on 12/15/2017 12:36:36 AM PST by Olog-hai
Global inequality has stabilized at high levels in recent years, a report said Friday, despite gains among the poor in China and much milder disparities in incomes and wealth in Western Europe.
The World Inequality Report 2018 is based on a massive, interactive collection of data compiled by an international team of researchers that includes renowned economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.
It shows inequality has soared since 1980, although the global top “1 percent” saw their share of global income slip slightly after the 2008 financial crisis, to just above 20 percent. At the same time, the share of global income going to the bottom 50 percent rose slightly, to just under 10 percent, thanks to gains in populous, fast-growing China and India.
The United States and Western Europe had similar levels of inequality in 1980, with the top 1 percent holding about 10 percent of income. But by 2016, the top 1 percent in Europe held a 12 percent income share, compared with 20 percent in the U.S. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Yeah. The democrats of course.
I recall loads of cash being flown out to our enemies under the last admin!
“renowned economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez”
“Renowned”, lol. Piketty is renowned for being a marxist and a fraud. And AP is renowned for peddling marxist propaganda disguised as journalism.
The top 1 Percent make jobs for the other percenters. Basic Economics 101.
Ask a man whether he worries about having a job or whether some rich guy has a lot of money.
The only question a person looking for a job should ask is “Is his money going to create a job for me? If so, let him have a mansion and many cars. I need work to support myself and my family”
Building cars, yachts, and mansions puts money in laborers pockets. Staying stoned in mommy’s basement not so much.
it’s also amazing how the wealth often vanishes in a couple of generations.
capitalism isn’t a economic system; it’s a moral system
I don’t know.
It seems the share of wealth held by the wealthiest in America has doubled.
During this time, the wealthy sold a (LOT) of formerly American companies, and sent them to China.
Not a good trend, in my view. Not for America, not for Americans, and not overall.
Our economic position is rapidly deteriorating.
And certainly this is going on in liberal havens like California and New York.
The “rich” usually get “richer”...no matter what the tax rate is.
“it Takes money to make money”...a phrase as old as the hills.
Those whining about the rich are liberal, who think that the “rich” should give their money up, just to be “fair”.
That, would be up to the “rich”...it’s their money.
The worlds money is not a finite amount, it doesn’t stop the “poor” from working hard and making their own money (usually paid to them by “rich” corporations).
There’s no money in being a snowflake...they melt to easily.
A friend from Russia relayed this story when I quizzed him as to why such an intelligent and wise people could succumb to the tyranny of socialism.
He related this old folk tale passed down since before the czars as an insight. It seems that many years ago two Russian peasants, Sergai and his friend, Ivan, had neighboring farms. Their harsh, simple lives were identical, save for one goat owned by Ivan that would provide a meager quantity of milk and cheese. Ivan would from, time to time, share his meager gifts with Sergai, although not nearly as often as Sergai thought fair.
One day on his way to church, Sergai came across and captured a magic troll that promised, if released, would grant him one wish. Sergai contemplates his good fortune for a moment and the miserable plight that is his life. He then remembers Ivan and his goat. Without further hesitation he orders the troll “I vant Ivan’s goat should die!” The troll responded “It is done”. Ivan was now no better off than Sergai.
Through Moses, our Lord commands us to not covet the possessions of our neighbors and yet many do.
“Our economic position is rapidly deteriorating.”
Unfortunately, it is hard to get a view of something as large as a national economy. We tend not to see the forest because of all the trees. Having been in business for goin on forty years and having one now, I can tell you that every decision is based around legal and tax questions.
This is an example fresh in my mind from articles written on the subject and it will not trigger an American and his agendas. Germany has a severe problem with “affordable” housing. Almost no apartments are being built in the lower segment of the marketplace. The German government is constantly after developers to develop such a product. But, the German government has, in the last forty years or so, enacted 20,000 laws and regulations governing apartments. By the time a developer has had lawyers review all the regulations and render a compliance decision he has already spent so much that he must charge a lot for his property. Therefore, to make the property pay, he only builds the highest end product he can afford.
To find the source of any problem that the economy might present, look no further than laws and regulations surrounding that problem. Almost overnight the percentage of disabled Americans employed dropped. What happened? Always helpful, the government passed laws to “help” the disabled in the workplace by making it easy to sue employers. Businesses are all about risk mitigation. Businesses reacted by limiting the number of disabled employees they employed. The same thing happened when the government passed special laws for minorities. The government tried to compensate by tying minority employment to award fees in all government contracts. Suddenly, things got more expensive for the government because employers started employing based, not what the worker could do, but on what color or ethnicity the worker was.
Business flees away from over-regulated, over-taxed areas to less regulated and less taxed areas. Look at Chicago, Detroit and California.
AS with anything mind-bogglingly complex, the economy needs to be viewed from many angles and altitudes and with many different pairs of eyes before drawing conclusions.
This is among the most idiotic left-wing horseshit “points”. Observe:
You have $1,000 and I have $100. The “gap” is $900.
Next year you double your money to $2,000 and mine increases ten fold to $1,000. You’re happy, I’m thrilled. But the gap has now increased from $900 to $1,000. Very disturbing because the gap is increasing.
The following year you drop down to $80 from $2,000 and I drop down to $90 from $1,000. We’re both miserable and much worse off than we were, but the “gap” is now a mere $10. SUCCESS!
The “gap” is the dumbest measure of all time.
“it’s also amazing how the wealth often vanishes in a couple of generations.
capitalism isn’t a economic system; it’s a moral system”
worth repeating
The rich rig the game in order to make it legal for them to take a greater percentage of the pie, even when that pie is growing.
A few years back, Microsoft had a cash dividend payout of $57 billion.
This means they are failures at management: a competent company would have re-invested the money. By distributing all of it to shareholders, they admitted they had no idea how to deploy it to expand the business (creating jobs).
But it gets worse. Microsoft's Brian Valentine famously stated, "Think India! Two for the price of one!"
This is tantamount to an admission, that the company gained that $57 billion, by suppressing wages by hiring Third Worlders instead of US citizens.
(And they claim that if they didn't, some other company would eat their lunch.)
The reason that is a crock, is that if they'd taken that $57 billion and invested it in stable secure state bonds, they'd have earned a billion o two a year -- free of Federal taxes. Which money would esily have paid the salary differential to have ALL US citizens programming.
Without jeopardizing the principal or the cash flow from continuing operations.
Or consider GE and that lying slimebag Jack "Neutron" Welch.
"We didn't give them lifetime employment -- we gave them lifetime employability."
O RLY?
Meantime, after dumping his wife for the editor of Harvard Business Review (he gave his first wife "lifetime marriageability" eh?) he skated off with a lifetime pension of $2 million / year.
How in HELL did that deal benefit shareholders?
And you can tell how well his protegés managed the company -- they're considering a dividend cut for the 2nd time since the company was formed, and there's talk of dropping them from one of the stock indices.
GE stands for "Greedy Executives."
Nice try, though.
Thank you, One Note Johnny...You proved my case.
On the other hand, go F... yourself.
Back in reality, US wages have remained stagnant since the early 1970s in inflation-adjusted dollars.
The pie has grown enormous.
But only the few at the top are benefiting from the increase in wealth.
Case in point, automobiles. I remember when the slogan was, "Buy new every two."
Now people are routinely asked to bring their *Payment book* with them to purchase a new care: companies are offering 7-year car loans; and most people lease (which costs a LOT more in the long term, even though you have the illusion of always having a newer-ish car).
It's not because the purchasing power of the average person has improved markedly: it used to be a man could graduate high school, take a factory job, and support a family in a lower-middle-class lifestyle, on his income alone.
Now to get a middle-class lifestyle, it takes both spouses working full-time with college degrees -- which must be paid off.
Speaking of college, it used to be one could work part time during the school year, and full time over the summer, at low-end retail or waitressing jobs, and exit college with a degree and no debt.
How often does *that* happen anymore?
And the quality of the education has markedly decreased: not only is one usually taught by bitter adjuncts or foreign teaching assistants, but the content of the coursework is SWJ converged Marxism and Snowflake Studies with a minor in self-pity: of little interest to future employers.
The same few vermin in the upper tiers, are getting rich off of this as well.
Moron.
I take it you work for a company which promotes and sells H1-B visa holders.
Was your diatribe supposed to disprove my point? It didn’t.
Nice try, troll-boi.
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