<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">On Mon, Jul 8, 2019 at 3:58 PM Dan TheBookMan <</span><a href="mailto:danust2012@gmail.com" target="_blank" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">danust2012@gmail.com</a><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">> wrote:</span><br></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr"><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-size:large"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">>> </span>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.</span><br><font size="4">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.</font></blockquote><div><div class="gmail_quote"><div><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"></span></div></div></div><div><br></div><i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>Would you cite a reliable source for those numbers?</i></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality">List of countries by income equality</a></font><br></div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">Even the CIA says much the same thing in their list, only they use the Gini coefficient:</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div></div><div><a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2172rank.html"><font size="4">List of countries by Gini coefficient</font></a><br></div><div><br></div><div><font size="4"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">And take a look at this</span> plot of the Gini coefficient for several industrialized countries (<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">one</span> 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):  </font><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><a href="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" target="_blank"><font size="4">The <span class="gmail-il">Great</span> <span class="gmail-il">Gatsby</span> <span class="gmail-il">Curve</span> </font></a></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><font size="4">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<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">.</span></font></div><div><font size="4"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"></span></font><br></div><div><div dir="ltr"><font size="4">Here is another interesting graph, it plots several countries actual economic mobility against the perceived economic mobility with the diagonal line representing a<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">n</span> accurate assessment of possibilities. As you can see Americans are far too optimistic while most other countries are somewhat too pessimistic</font><span class="gmail_default" style="font-size:large;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"></span><font size="4">, only the Italians get it about right</font><span class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="4"> 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.    </font></span><font size="4"> </font></div><div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0bIjqqXgAApZ3O.png" target="_blank"><font size="4">Actual Mobility Versus Perceived Mobility </font></a></div></div></div><div><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">From:</font></div><div><br></div><div><font size="4"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/aparnamathur/2018/07/16/the-u-s-does-poorly-on-yet-another-metric-of-economic-mobility/#258e794d6a7b" target="_blank">The U.S. Does Poorly  Economic Mobility</a> </font></div><div><br></div><div><i><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:tabular-numbers,Georgia,Cambria,"Times New Roman",Times,serif;font-size:18px;font-variant-ligatures:common-ligatures;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">"</span>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.<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">"</span></span><br></i></div><div><i><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:tabular-numbers,Georgia,Cambria,"Times New Roman",Times,serif;font-size:18px;font-variant-ligatures:common-ligatures;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span></span></i></div><font size="4">There<span class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> 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:</font></span></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font size="4"><span class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></span></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="4"><a href="https://persquaremile.com/2011/12/16/income-inequality-in-the-roman-empire/">Income inequality in the Roman Empire</a><br></font><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><div><i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>Congrats on your retirement!</i><br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">Thanks Dan.</font></div><br>
</div><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4"> John K Clark</font></div></div></div>