Though I've understood and sympathized with the plight of the "pitchforks and torches" crowd during the Great Recession, I've rarely been able to work myself up into the same kind of furor over the glaring disparities of wealth in this country. But, this little factoid via Matt Yglesias had me a little peeved during today's morning coffee:
'The average income reported by the 400 highest-earning U.S. households grew to almost $345 million in 2007, up 31 percent from a year earlier, Internal Revenue Service statistics show'.
[OK. That's not so bad. Capitalism, yay! But:]
'That means that the top 400 households together earned $138 billion in 2007. By contrast, according to the Consumer Expenditure Survey the 24 millionhouseholds who comprise the bottom fifth of the income distribution together hauled in about $247 billion'. [Emphasis mine].
@MsStabby: That statistic depends on how you define "nation's wealth", but, yes, the degree of inequality is staggering and this inequality does introduce economic and political distortions that may ultimately have a deleterious effect on the middle-class, at least what remains of it.
This paper by Emmanuel Saez of Berkeley was cited last year in several news articles and studies relating to income equality. It validates a lot of the indignation over the nation's income inequality. [www.docstoc.com] (Warning: It's a little wonky).
The ("liberal") Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a similar report in 2009: [www.cbpp.org]
And the Nation devoted an entire issue on the matter of income inequality: [www.thenation.com]
None of these mention the 95%-statistic you mentioned above, but they do illustrate empirically the enormous gulf in income and wealth between those at the very top and everyone else.
@Uncle_Billy_Slumming: First off, why isn't this comment promoted by default? Where the hell did your star go?
I don't what else to call it. A mini-depression? I don't think there is even a settled-upon definition of what constitutes a depression, let alone a recession. After all, we've had two straight quarters of GDP growth. So, according to some definitions, we're not even in a recession anymore.
Some indicators at the beginning of the current crisis thingee were definitely as bad or worse than the Great Depression ([www.voxeu.org]). The poor performance of some of those indicators - like global trade - persist.
I think the consensus among economists - if you're inclined to believe their hocus-pocus - seems to be that, despite the many troubling weaknesses that remain, the monetary and fiscal policies of the government's technocrats have successfully averted something depression-like (at least, in the US). Whether the economy will have any sort of sustained and consistent growth in the coming years is an open question. It's doubtful, however, that, given all that has been learned since the Great Depression and given the institutions and the social safety net that were established in its aftermath, America will experience anything like the Great Depression in the foreseeable future. Most likely we're in for a "Great Malaise" like Japan experienced during much of the last 15 years.
Or, we could all be going to hell in handbasket. What do I know?
Though I've understood and sympathized with the plight of the "pitchforks and torches" crowd during the Great Recession, I've rarely been able to work myself up into the same kind of furor over the glaring disparities of wealth in this country. But, this little factoid via Matt Yglesias had me a little peeved during today's morning coffee:
'The average income reported by the 400 highest-earning U.S. households grew to almost $345 million in 2007, up 31 percent from a year earlier, Internal Revenue Service statistics show'.
[OK. That's not so bad. Capitalism, yay! But:]
'That means that the top 400 households together earned $138 billion in 2007. By contrast, according to the Consumer Expenditure Survey the 24 million households who comprise the bottom fifth of the income distribution together hauled in about $247 billion'. [Emphasis mine].
24,000,000 » 400
#recessionomics #rich #gettingricher #poornotsomuch #income #disparity #mattyglesias
#crosstalk
#tips
(Edit comment)@atlasfugged:
Ugh, there's that phrase again, "Great Recession."
Did you type that with a straight face? Some indicators are already worse than GDI, and we're still in the opening innings.
#tips
(Edit comment)@MsStabby: That statistic depends on how you define "nation's wealth", but, yes, the degree of inequality is staggering and this inequality does introduce economic and political distortions that may ultimately have a deleterious effect on the middle-class, at least what remains of it.
This paper by Emmanuel Saez of Berkeley was cited last year in several news articles and studies relating to income equality. It validates a lot of the indignation over the nation's income inequality. [www.docstoc.com] (Warning: It's a little wonky).
The ("liberal") Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a similar report in 2009: [www.cbpp.org]
And the Nation devoted an entire issue on the matter of income inequality: [www.thenation.com]
None of these mention the 95%-statistic you mentioned above, but they do illustrate empirically the enormous gulf in income and wealth between those at the very top and everyone else.
#tips
(Edit comment)@Uncle_Billy_Slumming: First off, why isn't this comment promoted by default? Where the hell did your star go?
I don't what else to call it. A mini-depression? I don't think there is even a settled-upon definition of what constitutes a depression, let alone a recession. After all, we've had two straight quarters of GDP growth. So, according to some definitions, we're not even in a recession anymore.
Some indicators at the beginning of the current crisis thingee were definitely as bad or worse than the Great Depression ([www.voxeu.org]). The poor performance of some of those indicators - like global trade - persist.
I think the consensus among economists - if you're inclined to believe their hocus-pocus - seems to be that, despite the many troubling weaknesses that remain, the monetary and fiscal policies of the government's technocrats have successfully averted something depression-like (at least, in the US). Whether the economy will have any sort of sustained and consistent growth in the coming years is an open question. It's doubtful, however, that, given all that has been learned since the Great Depression and given the institutions and the social safety net that were established in its aftermath, America will experience anything like the Great Depression in the foreseeable future. Most likely we're in for a "Great Malaise" like Japan experienced during much of the last 15 years.
Or, we could all be going to hell in handbasket. What do I know?
#tips
(Edit comment)User action
Thread action