Nickolai

The World Wealth Report
The World wealth report took time out this year to look at the last 40 years. The period since 1980. They found that in e******y has worsened over this period. A staggering increase in ine******y, Literally inside all countries. In 1980 the top 10 % of the world’s population got 16 % of the worlds wealth by 2016 that share had risen to 20 % of the worlds wealth. They not only got more their share went up faster than everybody else so everybody else had to make do with a smaller share. From 1980 to the present the income of the top .001 % the richest if the richest in America went up by 600 %. The bottom half of the American people 160 odd million people saw no income increase at all over the last 40 years. That is if you adjust the money they earned to the prices they had to pay they saw no increase at all in their income.

In Europe the income of the top .001 % grew --but it grew five times times more slowly than in America. The Europeans didn’t experience the growth at the top at the expense of everybody else the way they did in the US so the bottom half in Europe grew by 26 %. Over 40 years that’s not much, but it’s better than zero, which is what the bottom half in America was able to do, and where the bottom 50 % of the population share of total income decreased from 20 % to 10 % of the total. Think of that the bottom half of the US population lost have of their share of the total income of Society over the last 40 years and a Journeyman worker in my former trade makes less per today than What I was paying 35-40 years ago, a good way of understanding American politics right up through Trump. But why does this happen what causes it to happen.

We have been told for the last 100 years that capitalism is going to enrich the rich but were all going to benefit because it’s all gonna trickle down. The rich being better off will make us all participate in their good fortune. The last 40 years shows us that is stone cold wrong. It doesn’t trickle down. The rich got much much richer and the poor and working poor went absolutely nowhere. Trickle down is the phoney baloney story it always was. As for some of the reasons --in 1980 the US had the highest minimum wage in the world but since then that wage has fallen by 30 % by comparison during that 40 year period the min wage in France has gone up 300 %.
There is a reason why the bottom half in Europe didn’t fare as badly as in the US---they are treated better, they have universal health care systems, paid maternity leave for mother and father. More and more European countries are providing free higher education. Capitalism has shown in the last 40 years that it is an engine of fundamentally unequal economic development. The only reason Capitalism after the 1930 made less ine******y was the mass world up rising of people across the world demanding a better deal than what capitalism was giving them and they got it for a while the New Deal in America and social Democracy in Europe. But as soon as Capitalism could recover and resume its M.O. In e******y is the gift it gives. No trickle down ine******y is the cost of capitalism for the majority of the people

badbob85037

Maybe the poor should try harder.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Utopia is an impossible dream, Nik. Get over it.

emarine

Not for the 1% ...

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

What makes you think the 1% are living in an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect?

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

Actually I think you would find in a socialist c*******t society the difference between the ruling class and the rest of the people is much more significant than in capitalistic societies. Plus the capitalist system makes for more movement from one level to the next, both up and down the economic scale. The best way to not be poor is to follow a simple plan
1 graduate from high school having actually learned something
2 learn a trade, even if college is your goal
3 don't have children until you are married then make a wise choice and stay married
4 don't do drugs or drink
5 believe in God and His grace and make an honest attempt to follow His commandments

not too hard is it, but is a lifelong commitment in both good times and bad.

moldyoldy

Nickolai

That's the right wing dogma Studies show that upward mobility you describe is far less likely than it was 40 years ago It’s not an exaggeration: It really is getting harder to move up in America. Those who make very little money in their first jobs will probably still be making very little decades later, and those who start off making middle-class wages have similarly limited paths. Only those who start out at the top are likely to continue making good money throughout their working lives.

Nickolai

Researchers wanted to see not just the probability of moving to a different income bracket over the course of a career, but also how that probability has changed over time. So they measured a given worker’s chances of moving between deciles ​during two periods​, one from 1981 to 1996 and another from 1993 to 2008. They found quite a disparity. The probability of ending where you start has gone up, and the probability of moving up from where you start has gone down, For instance, the chance that someone starting in the bottom 10 percent would move above the 40th percentile decreased by 16 percent. The chance that someone starting in the middle of the earnings distribution would reach one of the top two earnings deciles decreased by 20 percent. Yet people who started in the seventh decile are 12 percent more likely to end up in the fifth or sixth decile—a drop in earnings.

Nickolai

The surest way to not be poor today is to be like Trump Be born on Third base and think you hit a triple with Barry Bonds in the on deck circle

Nickolai

Goodbye Middle Class: 51 Percent Of All American Workers Make Less Than $30,000 Dollars A Year

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Feudalism was replaced by Capitalism, Nobles were replaced by Merchants, but the result is the same. Neo peasants are the Middle class, who rely on the rich for their sustenance and who's blood, sweat and tears enrich their masters.

Of course, this is America, the land of opportunity, so anyone can join the ranks of the elite.......................as soon as they have enough money to buy in.

Nickolai

There is no such thing as utopia I would like to see a more egalitarian society of the kind I grew up with minus the Jim Crow laws

Mr. Rogers

Thank you for your reply.

Mr. Rogers

The blessings God has bestowed upon America resembles the blessings he [God] bestows upon Israel, while the rest of the land all around remain cursed.