Hi meekerdb Some economists argue that the wealthy invest their money, creating capital for creating businesses, hiring workers, and generally enriching the economy. (The poor don't save money for others to use.)
So greed is good for the country. [Roger Clough], [[email protected]] 12/25/2012 "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: meekerdb Receiver: Barrett Meeker,Art Shaffman,Bill Stermer,Dan Foster,Gennifer home,Ed Gravlin,Hugh Kramer,Jim Wilkinson,Kirsten Meeker,Lara gmail,Mae Meeker,Marsha home,Mark Morgan,Mike Kory,Terry & Lucy home,Tom Blattel Time: 2012-12-24, 14:56:25 Subject: Re: clearing up the confusion on the fairness index I was not confused. I think a good argument can be made from simple fairness; that income (and wealth) should be more evenly distributed. But even this chart doesn't fully illustrate the problem. If all those households simply spent their money on goods and services and investments the inequality would be fairly benign. But at the high end, there is so much disposable income available that the very rich also spend it on influencing public policy (aka buying legislation). To paraphrase Al Capone: You can get a lot further with a vote and 10M$ than you can with a vote alone. On 12/24/2012 8:48 AM, Roger wrote: Hi meekerdb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States This graph shows the income of the given percentiles from 1947 to 2010 in 2010 dollars. The 2 columns of numbers in the right margin are the cumulative growth 1970-2010 and the annual growth rate over that period. The vertical scale is logarithmic, which makes constant percentage growth appear as a straight line. From 1947 to 1970, all percentiles grew at essentially the same rate; the light, straight lines for the different percentiles for those years all have the same slope. Meaning that the gini didn't change. Since then, there has been substantial divergence, with different percentiles of the income distribution growing at different rates. For the median American family, this gap is $39,000 per year (just over $100 per day): If the economic growth during this period had been broadly shared as it was from 1947 to 1970, the median household income would have been $39,000 per year higher than it was in 2010. Almost double what it is. This plot was created by combining data from the US Census Bureau[48] and the US Internal Revenue Service.[49] There are systematic differences between these two sources, but the differences are small relative to the scale of this plot.[50] Brent You can get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone. --- Al Capone -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
