Posted on 06/21/2011 4:23:07 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The gap between America's rich and poor is reportedly at an extreme high, much higher than many developing countries like Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, and even Yemen.
According to the Central Investigative Agency's (CIA) World Fact Book, which ranks countries in terms of how 'equally' wealth is distributed, the U.S. is the 42nd most unequal country in the world, the Daily Mail reports.
It has been ranked way behind the European Union and the United Kingdom in terms of equality of pay. In fact, the situation is so extreme that it has even been placed behind countries such as Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen.
It is reportedly just ahead of Uganda and Jamaica.
Although income disparity in the U.S. has been growing for decades, the latest figures show that it has now reached levels not seen since the Great Depression.
Ten percent of the total personal income in America was taken home by the top 0.1 percent of earners in 2008, the latest year for which figures are available.
Research suggests the reason for this extraordinary disparity is a huge rise in pay for company executives.
'Basically, executives represent a much bigger share of the top incomes than a lot of people had thought. Before, we just didn't know who these people were," economist Jon Bakija, a professor at Williams College who with his co-authors is continuing the research, said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyindia.com ...
I’m sure that there is something fraudulent about the claim. But, in any event, liberty and inequality are inseparable, and a society without economic inequality is immoral. Someone should mention to the Indians, by the way, that we have the world’s fattest “poor” people.
The chart is "upside down" if you will, with the worst countries at the top. On the version on the CIA website (not sure if it's newer or older than the one referenced in the article, the United States is 39th from worst. The bottom of the list, the "best" in the article author's opinion, is Sweden. Working up from the bottom, you find Hungray, Norway, Serbia, ...
The United States is 39th, Greece is 96th, Italy and Spain are 102nd and 103rd.
this comes from an indian website, not the indian govt. They have vast inequalities too, measured on the Gini coefficient, however, the article doesn’t talk about the % of poverty but the gap between the rich and the poor. in india, most everyone is poor, so there is little gap :-P
It should also be mentioned that the United States gubmint has spent trillions of tax dollars on the so-called "war on poverty" in the past 40 odd years with the result being a higher rate of poverty now than when the "war" was started.....
I wonder if the poor in Cameroon have cell phones.
Well, there are super rich in India as well. But the vast majority are dirt poor. It makes a gap, isn’t it?
Understood. The irony of an Indian talking about the wealth gap is astounding. There are plenty of well off Indians.
Understood. The irony of an Indian talking about the wealth gap is astounding. There are plenty of well off Indians.
In the US I don't know why the gap is high, quite frankly, but in China it's pretty apparent why.
In the US I guess the gap is high due to people earning well, not robbing the poor blind like the robber barons of the 1800s (JP Morgan etc.) or of present-day China.
But, that said, it's not a good trend especially when the super-rich wall off their communities (and don't get me wrong, I lived like that recently) -- and that's a recent phenomenon. Prior to this, the rich would meet the poor somewhere, but if there is NO interaction except as server and served, then that leads to a lot of mistrust and antagonism
I think removal of the draft had an effect -- if the rich and poor served together as 18 year olds, when they turned 40, Mr. Moneybags would still remember that his chauffeur was his friend and the chauffeur would remember that -- lower social tension
AGain -- I'm not an economist, so these are just my thoughts and they could very well be wrong.
Fewer are becoming wealthy by working hard, being good people and following the rules(which are often written to work against competition). Instead it often happens by ‘knowing’ the right people that can help:
get “creative” with taxes
cherrypick permits while denying competition
get uncompetitive access to taxpayer funds
put pressure on competition
write favorable laws
find lawyers that ‘know’ judges
skirt patent law knowing a small inventor has no means to defend
seize private property at taxpayer expense
imprison people you don't like for easily generated crimes
allow labor export to slave states
Etc (these are just a few off the top of my head)
Every new wealthy person I know has taken advantage of this crony system at some level. They tell me generally the same thing “in today's business, there ain't no such thing as honest business”. I tell them I like to sleep at night and I will be judged someday.
I'm back home in the USSR and it makes me sick every day.
Exactly so!
>>>>>>>Someone should mention to the Indians, by the way, that we have the world’s fattest “poor” people.
It should also be mentioned that the United States gubmint has spent trillions of tax dollars on the so-called “war on poverty” in the past 40 odd years with the result being a higher rate of poverty now than when the “war” was started.....
>>>>>>>
I find the term “war on poverty” ridiculous. How can you fight something which is not exists naturally (poverty means absence or lack of wealh actually).
No surprise why de-facto this war makes more poverty because it’s aimed to strip one of money to give it to another who already managed to lose his own and know how to do it one more time.
Not to mention if being a poor is turning to be a nice career choice this way reducing producing population.
So you can see at least three effects corrupting productivity in just one nice sounding “war on poverty”.
WHY they don't want a job!
If you already “live rent free, have cars, large screen color TVs, AC and heat, and food stamps” WHY do you have to want a job?:)
When did they become the Central Investigative Agency?
There is no such thing a rich human detritus, therefore the inequality in Yemen and Cameroon.
Exactly!
Yes, boys and girls, the solution to Economic Inequality is Universal Poverty. While we’re looking at disparities, you might want to check out the disparity between what it’s like to be poor in the U.S. in 2011 and what it’s like to be poor in Yemen.
Stupid.
Rather than robbing the poor, JP Morgan saved the economy of the US on 2 different occasions.
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