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Extreme policies lead to extreme outcomes.
Income inequality reached its highest level in more than half a century last year, as a record-long economic expansion continued to disproportionately benefit some of the wealthiest Americans.
A key measure of wealth distribution jumped to 0.485 in 2018, the Census Bureau said Thursday, its highest reading since the so-called Gini index was started in 1967. The gauge, which uses a scale between 0 and 1, stood at 0.482 a year earlier.
Work alone won't solve poverty—unless wages and earnings pick up substantially. It still takes government aid for families with children and others who do not earn enough, despite working 40 plus hours a week.
The most troubling thing about the new report, says William M. Rodgers III, a professor of public policy and chief economist at the Heldrich Center at Rutgers University, is that it "clearly illustrates the inability of the current economic expansion, the longest on record, to lessen inequality."
According to some research, US income inequality might be higher than it was during the Roman Empire, and pre-tax income inequality is as high as it was in the Roaring Twenties.
Income inequality is blamed on cheap labor in China, unfair exchange rates, and jobs outsourcing. Corporations are often blamed for putting profits ahead of workers. But they must to remain competitive. U.S. companies must compete with lower-priced Chinese and Indian companies who pay their workers much less. As a result, many companies have outsourced their high-tech and manufacturing jobs overseas. The United States has lost 20 percent of its factory jobs since 2000. These were traditionally higher-paying union jobs.
Service jobs have increased, but these are much lower paid.
If current policies touted as "decreasing globalism" in the US economy are trying to reduce income inequality, they're failing.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 29 2019, @04:53AM (20 children)
It's simpler than that even. It's two kids with plates piled high with cookies. No matter how many cookies they have between them, if one of them has one less cookie, there will be blood. Envy, plain and simple.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Sunday September 29 2019, @04:59AM (3 children)
Sounds like useful minions for the fat rats...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 29 2019, @05:06AM (2 children)
Oh go hate on the guy down the street with a nicer lawn than you. Envy is envy and there's no shade of lipstick you can put on that pig to make it anything but a pig.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by fustakrakich on Sunday September 29 2019, @05:21AM (1 child)
What hate? There you go again...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @03:36PM
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday September 29 2019, @05:08AM (1 child)
I mostly see this happen between siblings of roughly the same age. Isn't it great we're one big happy fa--MOM!!!! One of Jennifer's cookies is BIGGER than MINE!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by driverless on Sunday September 29 2019, @09:07AM
Don't worry honey, when you're a bit older you can go and find yourself a sugar daddy and he'll buy you the biggest cookies he can afford.
Although I've never heard them called that before. Plenty of other euphemisms, but not that "cookies".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday September 29 2019, @01:06PM (9 children)
No, its more complex than that: its two kids with plates of cookies, but one kid stole cookies off the other kids plate while the other kid wasn't looking and was too trusting.
The kid with the most cookies THEN used his extra cookies to bribe mom so he could steal MORE of the other kids cookies and keep doing it because mom protected him.
He even got mom to cook extra cookies and bend the rules so the kid with the extra cookies got more just by existing, while the 'poorer' kid had to clean the whole house (the 'richer' kids room too), AND the garage, AND the car, AND....
THAT'S the system as it exists today: I have nothing against capitalism; my problem is with so-called capitalists gaming the system to CONSIDERABLY work in their favor.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 29 2019, @03:51PM (8 children)
No, it's not. The people bitching about income inequality don't give a fuck if those with more actually cheated to get more or earned every dime they have. They assume everyone who has more either cheated or otherwise does not deserve it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Sunday September 29 2019, @03:56PM (3 children)
No one "earned" a billion dollars. No one. They stole it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @05:07PM (1 child)
Good job proving TMB's point.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @05:58PM
Congrats on failing common sense.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 30 2019, @06:28PM
That's what's wrong... they didn't actually steal it (most times), they "earned" it fair and square, within the rules.
The problem with the rules is that they present some people with much easier and likely opportunities for success than others, like 100:1 and worse ratios.
Sure, anyone can win a megamillions lottery, but some kids are born to situations where they "earn" their own megamillions - completely legally and within the rules, but using lottery level advantages that they were born to.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Touché) by dry on Monday September 30 2019, @04:23AM (1 child)
It's people working 40+ hours a week and not be able to afford basic stuff like a home or food without government aid. Companies like Walmart actually teach their employees how to apply for food stamps rather then pay them a living wage.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 30 2019, @03:27PM
What kind of home? What kind of food? Last I checked US minimum wage was pretty high. Should be able to afford that on minimum wage.
I don't hear the "Thank you, Walmart!" Have you no shame?
It's silly how people create these sorts of policies and then refuse to own the consequences of them. Here is particularly dispicable since the consequences are good even if we choose as you do to interpret Walmart's behavior in the worst possible light. Subsidizing Walmart to employ poor people? Gotta stop that!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30 2019, @04:29PM
It's amazing how you know what millions of people are *thinking* without ever having spoken to, heard from or even waved your hands mysteriously near them.
That's quite a talent you have. Do you do birthday parties?
What's more, perhaps you should wave your hands around some other people and realize that they think that if you're poor (and it doesn't matter how you got that way -- born into poverty, bankrupted by medical bills, etc.) that you deserve to be poor because you are insufficiently _______ (fill in the blank).
Both sets of people are wrong in the aggregate. *if* we had an environment that provided equal *opportunity* for all, one might be slightly less ridiculously wrong for making such arguments, but that's not happening anytime soon, is it?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 30 2019, @06:25PM
Define "cheat." In a system where the rules clearly state "it takes money to make money" - that's a significantly sloped playing field.
Sure, I met a .com kid millionaire, fair and square "earned" $10M by the time he was 22. Oh, cough, yeah, dad staked him over $100K seed money to start playing stocks with when he was 17, but - he absolutely "earned" that $10M himself, even paid dad back.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ilPapa on Sunday September 29 2019, @02:22PM
Maybe it's time to stop using the behavior of toddlers as a standard for how adults should be expected to act.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @02:36PM (2 children)
Ooph, TMB for the idiocy once again.
Gotta love the simple everyman logic, have you considered running for prez?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 29 2019, @03:52PM (1 child)
Learn to troll.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @08:38PM
That wasn't trolling you moron, just straight up pointing out the deficiencies in your character. AKA "insults"
Cry some more, I love them lib tears!