Quote:
|
Originally Posted by cj2112
I recognize that I am fortunate, and I also recognize that I am likely the exception to the rule. While I believe that we are currently in an economic upswing, I don't believe that things are as good as the right would like make them out to be, however they also aren't as bad as the left would lead us to believe, just as is the case w/ many other current issues.
|
they won't be as bad....they will be much. much worse. If this is what "full employment" looks like:
<img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/101/3984/1024/EPIJobs2.jpg">
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...ants-jobs.html
<b>A Job Prospect Lures, Then Frustrates, Thousands</b>
<img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/11/04/nyregion/04jobs600.1.jpg">
Andrea Mohin/The New York Times
<i>Several thousand people lined up in Manhattan Friday, many for hours, to apply for some 200 jobs at a new Times Square candy store to open next month.</i>
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by hiredgun
Wait. Shakran, 40% and 3%? Are those actual figures or are you just throwing them out there?
I don't know what the figures are for other developed countries, but that is more skewed than I would have expected.
|
...actually, hiredgun, the distribution of waelth in the US is much worse than Shakran described it. I've documented at the following link on the minimum wage thread, that the bottom half holds just 2-1/2 percent of the total wealth. The bottom 25 to 35 percent actually "enjoy" negative wealth:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...5&postcount=37
....consider this:
Quote:
http://www.sustainablemiddleclass.co...efficient.html
<FONT SIZE=4>.....The Gini Coefficient is named after Corado Gini, an Italian economist who published it in 1912. The Gini Coefficient is derived from a statistical formula and expresses the degree of evenness or unevenness of any set of numbers as a number between 0 and 1. A Gini Coefficient of 0 would indicate equal income for all earners. A Gini Coefficient of 1 would mean that one person had all the income and nobody else had any.
Thus, lower Gini Coefficients indicate more equitable distribution of wealth in a society, while higher Gini Coefficients mean that wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer people. More information is available at the </FONT><A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_index"><FONT SIZE=4>Wikipedia (Gini coefficient)</FONT></A><FONT SIZE=4>. Sometimes the Gini Coefficient is multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage between 0 and 100. This is called the "Gini Index". ...
|
Quote:
http://www.energybulletin.net/12271.html
<img src="http://www.energybulletin.net/image/articles/12275/fig4.png">
....In blunt terms, the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer. In fact, except for the top 20 percent of our population, we are all getting poorer as more and more income shifts to the very top, and The American Dream becomes less and less attainable for more than 80 percent of our population.
Amazingly, the differences between the top fifth – the richest – and the bottom fifth – the poorest – is almost equal to what it was during the Great Depression, with no New Deal in sight! This discrepancy was made painfully apparent during the Hurricane Katrina disaster when the poorest of New Orleans’ inhabitants, the bottom fifth, suffered the lack of nearly all life-sustaining resources, as Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) head Michael Browne consistently ignored urgent updates from his staff at the scene.
<img src="http://www.energybulletin.net/image/articles/12275/fig2.png">
The Gini Coefficient, which we’ve previously used to compare nations on a world basis, also reflects increasing inequity within the U.S. (0 corresponds to everyone having the same income, and 1 corresponds with one person having all the income. The U.S. Gini Coefficient (Figure 2) is now at the highest level since records began to be kept!3
A Gini coefficient of 0.3 or less indicates substantial equality. A coefficient of 0.3 to 0.4 is generally considered an acceptable normality and 0.4 or higher is considered too large. A value of 0.6 or higher is predictive of social unrest.4
|
<b>Mexico's Gini number is 54....</b>