[ExI] I see pitchforks.

[John Clark]

On Mon, Jul 8, 2019 at 3:58 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Due to technological advancements accelerating income inequality is a
>> worldwide problem but the rate of increase is most dramatic in the USA. The
>> US income inequality is greater than that in India or ANY country in Asia
>> or ANY country in Europe, the only countries where it's higher are in
>> Africa and South America where they tend to have revolutions every other
>> day.
>> And the USA also does poorly on economic mobility, Canada has twice as
>> much and Denmark three times, in the USA if you're born poor you'll
>> probably die poor.
>
>
> *> Would you cite a reliable source for those numbers?*
>

List of countries by income equality
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality>

Even the CIA says much the same thing in their list, only they use the Gini
coefficient:

List of countries by Gini coefficient
<https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2172rank.html>

And take a look at this plot of the Gini coefficient for several
industrialized countries (one measure of economic inequality) against
economic mobility (the likelihood if you're born in one economic class
you'll die in the same economic class):

The Great Gatsby Curve
<https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.bwbx.io%2Fimages%2Fusers%2FiqjWHBFdfxIU%2Fi39D39AoA74w%2Fv1%2F1000x-1.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2F2013-12-12%2Fthe-gatsby-curve-how-inequality-became-a-household-word&docid=sLvBewmozWO0CM&tbnid=7SCQhdxQMkmSvM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwj44KDfgeHgAhUCD60KHUFzAUgQMwhLKAswCw..i&w=1000&h=825&bih=863&biw=1707&q=Great%20Gatsby%20Curve%3A&ved=0ahUKEwj44KDfgeHgAhUCD60KHUFzAUgQMwhLKAswCw&iact=mrc&uact=8>

As you can see the USA is in the extreme upper right of the plot and that
is exactly where you don't want to be; enormous economic inequality and
little economic mobility.

Here is another interesting graph, it plots several countries actual
economic mobility against the perceived economic mobility with the diagonal
line representing an accurate assessment of possibilities. As you can see
Americans are far too optimistic while most other countries are somewhat
too pessimistic, only the Italians get it about right and see things as
they actually are. I don't think we can count on the people in the US
remaining so unrealistically optimistic forever, and when they wise up
there will be hell to pay.

Actual Mobility Versus Perceived Mobility
<https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0bIjqqXgAApZ3O.png>

From:

The U.S. Does Poorly Economic Mobility
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/aparnamathur/2018/07/16/the-u-s-does-poorly-on-yet-another-metric-of-economic-mobility/#258e794d6a7b>



*"upward economic mobility has been declining since the 1940s. For children
born in the 1940s, more than 90 percent were earning more than their
parents. Today, that number has dropped to 50 percent."*

There is even a study claiming that income inequality in the USA today is
more than twice as great as it was during the Roman Empire. And they had
slaves:

Income inequality in the Roman Empire
<https://persquaremile.com/2011/12/16/income-inequality-in-the-roman-empire/>

*> Congrats on your retirement!*
>

Thanks Dan.

John K Clark
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