kublikhan wrote:Outcast_Searcher, every developed country in the world is comprised of the same humans that make up the people in the US. And yet despite you attributing all the problems of the poor to human behavior and personal responsibility, somehow they manage to avoid the pitfalls you describe of the poor in the US. They are not a different species. They are all human. Thus there are other factors at play here besides just human behavior. This is not just the opinion of the "left" in the US either. The UN has come to the same conclusion.A scathing new United Nations report has found that the United States is leading the developed world in income and wealth inequality, laying explicit blame with the Trump administration for policies that actively increase poverty and inequality in the country.
UN report blames Trump administration policies for soaring income and wealth inequality
onlooker wrote:But Kaiser what if somebody really really likes using their cellphone for socializing and what not? Are they not doing what makes sense in following their heart's desire
Outcast_Searcher wrote:Pretending like Trump is the whole problem is pretty absurd. The main change, re the recent trend in wealth inequality started at the time of the Reagan era, over 30 years before Trump was Potus.
Instead of politicizing this, looking at what's changed -- re technology and its impacts on good jobs, would make FAR more sense, in my opinion.
And neither the right, which wants to ignore the issue, nor the left wanting to expand the nanny state endlessly, is addressing the core issues.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Tanada wrote:Outcast_Searcher wrote:Pretending like Trump is the whole problem is pretty absurd. The main change, re the recent trend in wealth inequality started at the time of the Reagan era, over 30 years before Trump was Potus.
Instead of politicizing this, looking at what's changed -- re technology and its impacts on good jobs, would make FAR more sense, in my opinion.
And neither the right, which wants to ignore the issue, nor the left wanting to expand the nanny state endlessly, is addressing the core issues.
Actually it started at least a decade before Reagan took office, right around the time conventional petroleum production in the USA peaked in 1970.
Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his mission to the United States of AmericaThe United States has the highest rate of income inequality among Western countries. For almost five decades the overall policy response has been neglectful at best, but the policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege to be earned rather than a right of citizenship.
Facts: Global InequalityWealth disparity in the United States is running twice as wide — and more — as wealth gaps in the rest of the industrial world. The middle class in the United States has less than half the wealth share of middle classes in much of the rest of the developed world.
The fairest of them all: why Europe beats the US on equalityIt’s hard to exaggerate the difference between western Europe and the USA when it comes to inequality. In 1980, these blocs of similar population and average income were also similar in income inequality: the top 1% captured around 10% of national income, while the poorest 50% took around 20%. Things have changed dramatically since then. Today, the top 1% in Europe take 12% of income (in the US, 20%) while the bottom 50% have 22% (in the US, 10%).
It’s often said that globalisation and digitalisation explain the surge in global inequality, but that’s not a very convincing narrative. Since the 1980s, Europe and the US have had similar exposure to global markets and new technologies. But they have differed in policies and institutional direction. To date, Europe has shown that it’s much better at keeping inequality in check.
social healthcare systems in most European countries still guarantee universal protection for all – hardly the case in the US. Many of those countries offer free access to university. Indeed, when policymakers in Bavaria attempted to introduce university fees in 2007, a referendum later overturned the decision. A young European’s hopes of receiving higher education depend much less on his or her parents’ income than their American counterpart’s.
Labour markets are also more favourable to workers in Europe than in the US, where the minimum wage has fallen by a third in real terms since the 1970s (in France it has risen fourfold). In Sweden and Germany, trade unions are represented in corporate governance bodies, taking part in strategic decision-making.
European regulation against lethal, polluting substances is stricter than elsewhere, and European countries are at the forefront of the global fight against climate change, investing a growing share of their GDP in energy efficiency and renewables. That’s also key to reducing inequality, now and in the future. Studies show that environmental degradation and inequality are closely linked.
Generous welfare states need to be financed, of course. Europe is a patchwork of taxation systems. But overall the continent has been good at protecting progressive taxation – which has not been the case in the US, Britain and also countries such as India, where inequality has mushroomed. Progressive taxation is a proven tool against entrenched privileges at the very top; it also helps finance investment and public expenditure designed to lift income levels at the bottom.
The EU has been instrumental in helping its poorer member states, and its low-income regions, catch up with those that are better off. The picture is not perfect, but EU cohesion funds have done a lot to fill some of the gaps and help its newer members.
Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in America (Updated)Between 1963 and 2016 families near the bottom of the wealth distribution (those at the 10th percentile) went from having no wealth on average to being about $1,000 in debt.
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