America's pay gap shame: Inequality between rich and poor is worse than Cameroon, Ivory Coast and re

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005550/Americas-pay-gap-Inequality-rich-poor-worse-revolutionary-Egypt.html

The gap between America's rich and poor is so extreme levels of inequality are worse in the land of the free than they are in many developing countries.

The U.S. ranks way behind the European Union and the United Kingdom in terms of inequality of pay, figures show.

In fact, the situation is so extreme the land of the free falls behind countries such as Cameroon, the Ivory Coast and revolutionary Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen - and only just in front of Uganda and Jamaica.

According to the CIA's World Fact Book, which ranks countries in terms of how 'equally' wealth is distributed, the U.S. is the 42nd most unequal country in the world.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005550/Americas-pay-gap-Inequality-rich-poor-worse-revolutionary-Egypt.html#ixzz1Pp97fsuq

[closeupready]

1. Which leads to social instability. Hasn't happened yet, but

it will if this persists. And, of course, it will persist.

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. I think it's a time bomb and current GOP policies are simply prolonging the inevitable.

You can only distract, placate and entertain the masses for so long. This is why I think the attack on education is so pressing to them. It's easier to distract, placate and entertain ignorant masses.

[rucky]

3. Is it time to break out the guillotine yet?

[Recursion]

7. Oddly enough revolutions usually come in times of *decreasing* inequality

Both the French and Russian revolutions happened after reforms that gave the peasants/serfs more stuff.

The fact that the image of desperate, starving masses rising up spontaneously in 1789 is still with us is a testament to Marat's and Robbespierre's success at propaganda but it's difficult to find a good historical argument for it. The French had greater income equality than the English, and greater protection of law in a lot of ways. The actual revolutionaries seem to have been the relatively well-off bourgeoisie, not the wretched starving miserables that Marat romanticized. Also, specifically about the guillotine, in both the French and Russian revolutions the monarchs weren't executed until a couple of years later, when the revolutionary leaders' utopian agenda had utterly failed to improve things and they needed a scapegoat.

EDIT: typo

[rucky]

9. Relative deprivation theory.

The change has to be perceived as attainable for a revolution/revolt to catch hold.

Sure this creates an opening for opportunists to take charge & exploit the cause, but I think that's more of an effect than a cause. It makes sense that revolts happen when things start to get better.

[TalkingDog]

12. So China....

I can see that.

[xchrom]

4. recommend

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. The rich have gotten impatient with taking all the gains.

Now they realize that they'll only keep getting richer if they take it directly from us by lowering our standard of living.

[Recursion]

6. OTOH, someone in the second income percentile in the US has more money...

...than someone in the 98th percentile in Cameroon. Simple relative inequality isn't everything.

[closeupready]

8. Right, because the US cost of living equals Cameroon's cost of living.

:sarcasm:

[Recursion]

10. Way to be reductionist with it

This isn't a simple question

[closeupready]

11. It makes perfect sense to most of us - because it makes perfect sense.

We do not aspire to be like Cameroon with regard to our general standard of living, so your attempt to do whatever it is you are trying to do here is unpersuasive.

And no offense intended, but just what is your point, by the way? :shrug: Seems like the story speaks for itself, without needing further data as to anything else.

[Recursion]

13. I think "would you rather be rich in Senagal or poor here?" is a fair question

And I don't know that it's an easy answer.

[closeupready]

14. Okay. But I think the story indicates somewhat how our society is ill,

since these types of 'inequality of income' stories demonstrate unequivocally that in the US over the last 30 years, the rich have gotten disproportionately richer than the middle class or the poor, who have either tread water or gotten poorer, esp. when you consider it in light of developments in terms of loss of health care, unemployment, child mortality, obesity, and many other stories that shed light on contemporary US living standards, and how the US living standard appears to be in long-term decline even as the rich just continue to make mountains of money, and seeing their tax burden fall. And also, when you consider that living standards in Brazil and India and China are all rising contemporaneously with our decline, it's alarming.

You are correct that pointing to Cameroon and saying, "we're more like Cameroon than we used to be!" doesn't tell us much, I'll give you that.