Lets give people some facts. The measure of income inequality is the Gini coeffecient. If all the income is owned by one person, and noone else has any income, the Gini coefficient is 1.0, and if everyone has the exact same income the Gini coefficient is Zero.
Since 1994 the US Gini Coefficient has been, for individuals, about 0.5, with small variations from 0.499 all the way to 0.512
http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/10/shocking-trend-in-us-individual-income.html
I wonder what the figure would be if you factored out Soros and his 25B.
It ain’t the Gilded Age... it’s the Gelded Age.
I did not read the entire article. If someone is asking the question is there to wide of a gap between the rich and the poor the answer is yes. The conservative business model says There should not be a multi-million-dollar divide between the highest paid and lowest paid company employee. Capitalism is the best market system. But by design it consolidates money at the top. If that consolidation is excessive it creates disparity that leads to social unrest.
“In 2009 alone, at the same time as the US was being convulsed by mass layoffs, the number of millionaires in the country skyrocketed.”
That is because jobs are being replaced by those who are currently innovating and the innovaters are yet again making money off of their creations. No different than Facebook doing better than MySpace because Facebook offers more and is more polished.
I'm trying to figure out what impact this has in real-world terms. I mean, what does this MEAN for Germany? Is it somehow more free, has a better system, and the poor are less poor?
I ask because it seems like when you're talking about whether the top five percent has 'less than half the assets' or the top five has 2/3, it really doesn't seem much of a difference in real world terms for the rest of us.
“… Inequality in America is greater than it has been in almost a century. Those fortunate enough to belong to the 1 percent, made up of the super-rich, stand on one side of the divide; the remaining 99 percent on the other.”
But notice who, exactly, is being complained about and who is exempted from this complaint.
Even though Forbes, in their Celebrity 100 list for 2010 lists Oprah Winfrey’s income at 315 million, nobody is complaining that her wealth is part of “inequity”. Forbes ranked Beyonce Knowles at #2 in this list, with an income of $87 million.
The band U2 came in at #7 with 130 million. Jay-Z is number #15 at $63 million.
Is there something wrong that such talented people can earn so much worldwide income? No, actually, the leftist complaint is inverted. Instead of being a problem in our society, it is something to be celebrated.
The real problem is how few of those who complain about “income inequality” take full advantage of all the free ways to vastly improve their own ability to be similarly successful.
One case in point: while she is not American, J.K. Rowling wrote the first of her Harry Potter books while tending to her child and camping out in coffee houses of Edinburgh. Don’t like to write? The entire undergraduate coursework of a number of major universities is available online for free, if someone would only spend the time.
It appears that time is the one thing that #OWS have in abundance, along with writers for swanky leftist European magazines.