Re: On Income Fairness in the USA and the world

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Hal Ruhl

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Dec 18, 2012, 4:15:31 PM12/18/12
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Hi Roger:

Try this and sort by wealth Gini

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribution_of_wealth

Hal

Hal Ruhl

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Dec 18, 2012, 4:30:51 PM12/18/12
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Roger Clough

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Dec 19, 2012, 10:33:55 AM12/19/12
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Hi Hal Ruhl 

So whbat ? Those gini coefficnets are in percentages,
so USA has a gini about 27 %, which is outstanding.
 
If you don't that,  see from the wikimedia
map (below) that  the USA gini coeff.
is about about average in the world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Filt/Sandbox
 
 
 
 
Sorry, you have to go to that page to find what the colors mean.
The pink color indicates that USA is smack dab in the middle
of the gini coefficients.
 
 


[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
12/19/2012 
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen

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Time: 2012-12-18, 16:15:31
Subject: Re: On Income Fairness in the USA and the world
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Craig Weinberg

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Dec 19, 2012, 10:48:02 AM12/19/12
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On Wednesday, December 19, 2012 10:33:55 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote:
Hi Hal Ruhl 

So whbat ? Those gini coefficnets are in percentages,
so USA has a gini about 27 %, which is outstanding.
 
If you don't that,  see from the wikimedia
map (below) that  the USA gini coeff.
is about about average in the world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Filt/Sandbox
 
 
 
 
Sorry, you have to go to that page to find what the colors mean.
The pink color indicates that USA is smack dab in the middle
of the gini coefficients.

No, smack dab in the middle of the 9 colors would be light orange - places like Iran and Turkey. Yellow countries like India and Khazakstan are doing better than that. We are down below average, in the D- range with China, Mexico, and Peru. Can you imagine how many dirt poor peasants there are in China or Mexico or Peru and how many abandoned ex-Middle Class suckers it takes to make the US that shade of pink?

It's grotesque. Think of how many hundreds of millions of dollars in spare change that those at the top have to convince people like you that giving them more and more of your money is the only political solution.

It's not helping your case any btw Roger that you keep trying to pull dead rabbits out of this hat. Turn it right side up and face the music.

Craig

 
 


[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
12/19/2012 
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen

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Time: 2012-12-18, 16:15:31
Subject: Re: On Income Fairness in the USA and the world


Hi Roger:

Try this and sort by wealth Gini

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribution_of_wealth

Hal

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Roger Clough

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Dec 19, 2012, 12:47:26 PM12/19/12
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Hi Craig Weinberg
 
 
" The Kuznet's theory goes like this: when a country begins developing economically,
its income inequality worsens. But after a few decades when the rich begin investing
more in the economy and wealth begins to "trickle down," income equalizes and people are
more wealthy then they would have otherwise been. The multilateral financial institutions
which have adhered to this theory, namely the IMF, enforce structural adjustment
progams (SAP's) on heavily indebted third world countries which drastically worsen
socioeconomic inequalities.
 
So I think the gini coefficient is largely a historical number,
where presumably avg pp income increases with time.
So you have to look at avg income as well.
 
The Kuznet inverted U curve below shows that  g is low for
rural or under- developed  situations such as Iran
and Greenland, where the avg income is low.
It reaches a peak when under industrializatyion, and
finally, in serice economies. wher income is the highest,
it automatically decreases again.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Interestingly, environmental degradation may follow a similar Kuznet curve
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
12/19/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
 
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kuznet- g--GDP curve hs12002.jpg
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meekerdb

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Dec 19, 2012, 2:01:24 PM12/19/12
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On 12/19/2012 7:33 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi Hal Ruhl 

So whbat ? Those gini coefficnets are in percentages,
so USA has a gini about 27 %, which is outstanding.

Where do you get this nonsense.  The very wikipedia page you cite shows the U.S. gini is 0.47 (and of course they are in percentages - that's the way gini is defined).  And 0.47 is 'outstanding' only if you think Uganda and Iran have a good distribution of income.  Yes, the U.S. gini is the middle of the worldwide *range*, because the range is goes all the way to 0.7 (Namibia) to 0.23 (Sweden), but the U.S. is far more unequal than the other OECD nations.

Brent

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Craig Weinberg

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Dec 19, 2012, 10:36:50 PM12/19/12
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On Wednesday, December 19, 2012 12:47:26 PM UTC-5, rclough wrote:
Hi Craig Weinberg
 
 
" The Kuznet's theory goes like this: when a country begins developing economically,
its income inequality worsens. But after a few decades when the rich begin investing
more in the economy and wealth begins to "trickle down," income equalizes and people are
more wealthy then they would have otherwise been. The multilateral financial institutions
which have adhered to this theory, namely the IMF, enforce structural adjustment
progams (SAP's) on heavily indebted third world countries which drastically worsen
socioeconomic inequalities.
 
So I think the gini coefficient is largely a historical number,
where presumably avg pp income increases with time.
So you have to look at avg income as well.
 
The Kuznet inverted U curve below shows that  g is low for
rural or under- developed  situations such as Iran
and Greenland, where the avg income is low.
It reaches a peak when under industrializatyion, and
finally, in serice economies. wher income is the highest,
it automatically decreases again.
 
 

Did you notice this chart on that link?

http://www.unc.edu/~nielsen/special/s2/hs12003a.gif

There is no shade of black that is white, sir. I know you mean well, but I have lived in the US for 44 years and I can tell you that it has gotten worse every decade - in California, in Colorado, and in North Carolina. People who were middle class are now economically abandoned while worthless monopolies capitalize on enormous economies of scale to own more and more and more. Can't you see that? Can't you tell?

Craig
 

Stephen P. King

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Dec 19, 2012, 11:09:31 PM12/19/12
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On 12/19/2012 10:36 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> Did you notice this chart on that link?
>
> http://www.unc.edu/~nielsen/special/s2/hs12003a.gif
>
> There is no shade of black that is white, sir. I know you mean well,
> but I have lived in the US for 44 years and I can tell you that it has
> gotten worse every decade - in California, in Colorado, and in North
> Carolina. People who were middle class are now economically abandoned
> while worthless monopolies capitalize on enormous economies of scale
> to own more and more and more. Can't you see that? Can't you tell?

OK, stop complaining! Start doing something about it! Eat the Rich!
I just wonder what your gonna do when they are all gone...

--
Onward!

Stephen


meekerdb

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Dec 19, 2012, 11:13:34 PM12/19/12
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I don't think it's economies of scale.  Inequality in the U.S. has been driven by two things.  One is the opening up and industrialization of India and China with huge low wage labor pools.  This has made it more economical to build factories there to sell products here.  The second is the financialization of the U.S. economy.  Most of the really rich make their money by moving money around.  There aren't millions of jobs moving money, it can be done by a few people with computers and the right education and family connections to get the jobs.

Brent

Stephen P. King

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Dec 19, 2012, 11:41:45 PM12/19/12
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    I agree! Also the "connections" to get immunity from prosecution helps. ;-) Look at all of the people that made billions selling subprime loans. When was the last time you saw a prosecution of that level of fraud and larceny? Seriously! http://www.publicintegrity.org/accountability/finance/corporate-accountability/whos-behind-financial-meltdown
-- 
Onward!

Stephen

Stephen P. King

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Dec 19, 2012, 11:44:41 PM12/19/12
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meekerdb

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Dec 20, 2012, 12:08:22 AM12/20/12
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In 1983 747 savings and loans failed, costing 90B$.  The FBI opened 5490 criminal investigations and by 1992 839 people were convicted.

Brent

Stephen P. King

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Dec 20, 2012, 12:19:06 AM12/20/12
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On 12/20/2012 12:08 AM, meekerdb wrote:
> In 1983 747 savings and loans failed, costing 90B$. The FBI opened
> 5490 criminal investigations and by 1992 839 people were convicted.

What about this time around? For example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Franklin_Financial_Corp. and see the
list http://www.huduser.org/portal/datasets/manu.html

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Onward!

Stephen


meekerdb

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Dec 20, 2012, 12:26:32 AM12/20/12
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On 12/19/2012 8:44 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
Also: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/subprime.htm


That's a very biases analysis that implies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought subprime loans, which they did not.  It was the banks and private mortgage companies that created the adjustable rate loans with teaser rates.  FM's only bought fixed rate loans with substantial down payments.  The did however buy 'liar loans'.  And their very existence made private lenders assume (correctly) that they would be bailed out.   Here's a much more balanced view of the events: http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2008/07/did_fannie_and.html

Brent


Stephen P. King

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Dec 20, 2012, 12:38:45 AM12/20/12
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-
    "Causing" and "allowing to occur" are not the same thing... Exactly how was it that banks where capable of making a profit from the loans that they could easily predict would have a very high default rate? How did the securitization process occur that least to the bundling?

    from the article you linked:
"Fannie and Freddie had purchased $4.9 trillion of the mortgages outstanding as of the end of 2007, 70% of which the GSEs had packaged and sold to investors with a guarantee of payment, and the remainder of which Fannie and Freddie kept for their own portfolios. The fraction of outstanding home mortgage debt that was either held or guaranteed by the GSEs (known as their "total book of business") rose from 6% in 1971 to 51% in 2003."

    So did Fannie and Freddie buy "packaged" subprime loans? yes indeed they did!  70%!

 I invite you to dive deep into this and see the facts for yourself. Don't take any one's summary as a fact, see the full picture for your self.
-- 
Onward!

Stephen

meekerdb

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Dec 20, 2012, 12:57:30 AM12/20/12
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It doesn't say that 70% were subprime and neither does the paper you cited; it just implies it.  But "Fannie and Freddie .... didn't like losing their market share, and they pushed the envelope on credit quality as far as they could inside the constraints of their charter: they got into "near prime" programs (Fannie's "Expanded Approval," Freddie's "A Minus") that, at the bottom tier, were hard to distinguish from regular old "subprime" except-- again-- that they were overwhelmingly fixed-rate "non-toxic" loan structures.

And

"As originators and investors with more energy than brains expanded their (subprime) lending to those borrowers and neighborhoods, it was difficult for Fannie and Freddie to increase their shares. They didn't want to buy or guarantee subprime loans, correctly perceiving them to be insanely risky. Instead they purchased securities created by subprime lenders, taking only the supposedly-safe tranches."



 I invite you to dive deep into this and see the facts for yourself. Don't take any one's summary as a fact, see the full picture for your self.

Same to you, fella.

Brent

Craig Weinberg

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Dec 20, 2012, 7:20:57 AM12/20/12
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On Wednesday, December 19, 2012 11:09:31 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote:
On 12/19/2012 10:36 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> Did you notice this chart on that link?
>
> http://www.unc.edu/~nielsen/special/s2/hs12003a.gif
>
> There is no shade of black that is white, sir. I know you mean well,
> but I have lived in the US for 44 years and I can tell you that it has
> gotten worse every decade - in California, in Colorado, and in North
> Carolina. People who were middle class are now economically abandoned
> while worthless monopolies capitalize on enormous economies of scale
> to own more and more and more. Can't you see that? Can't you tell?

     OK, stop complaining! Start doing something about it! Eat the Rich!

Unfortunately I think if that was possible it would have happened in the 60s, when Americans were young, rich, and healthy. Now it will only be turned into a justification for more control.

I just wonder what your gonna do when they are all gone...

Live in peace? Grow food? That's the thing, we'll never know what we might actually want to do as long as we have a society telling us what we have to do.
 

--
Onward!

Stephen


Roger Clough

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Dec 20, 2012, 11:28:36 AM12/20/12
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Hi Craig Weinberg
 
Then we have a dilemma. The numbers say that we are all living better,
while you ( and my liberal lady friend) say that things are getting worse.
I don't know the answer.
 
 
[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
12/20/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
 
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Roger Clough

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Dec 20, 2012, 12:00:36 PM12/20/12
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Hi meekerdb
 
True.
 
 
[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
12/20/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
 
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Stephen P. King

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Dec 20, 2012, 4:06:24 PM12/20/12
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On 12/20/2012 7:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
I just wonder what your gonna do when they are all gone...

Live in peace? Grow food? That's the thing, we'll never know what we might actually want to do as long as we have a society telling us what we have to do.
 

    Maybe we should start by not electing people that make it their mission in life to do exactly that: tell us what we have to do. Why don't they mind their own freaking business and let me deal with mine.
 

-- 
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Stephen

Roger Clough

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Dec 21, 2012, 11:03:57 AM12/21/12
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Hi Stephen P. King

A liberal is a person who fears that somehow, somewhere,
somebody has secretly figured out a way to do something on their own.

A liberal is a person who believes that you need a blueprint
to tie your shoes.



[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
12/21/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen

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Roger Clough

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Dec 21, 2012, 11:39:22 AM12/21/12
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Definition of a liberal

John Clark

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Dec 21, 2012, 1:28:42 PM12/21/12
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A liberal is a conservative who's been drafted and a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged.

 John K Clark

Craig Weinberg

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Dec 22, 2012, 5:26:29 PM12/22/12
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The people that are available to elect are those put forth by the two parties that satisfy the criteria of maximum chance of winning. There really isn't anything more than that. People get paid a lot of money to figure out what someone has to say, how they have to appear, etc to win these astronomically expensive campaigns. If the polls said that people would vote for Santa, then you would see a guy in a red suit in office. It's a puppet show from top to bottom. How could it not be?

Craig
 
 

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Stephen

Craig Weinberg

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Dec 22, 2012, 5:36:36 PM12/22/12
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On Friday, December 21, 2012 11:03:57 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote:
Hi Stephen P. King  

A liberal is a person who fears that somehow, somewhere,
somebody has secretly figured out a way to do something on their own.

A liberal is a person who believes that you need a blueprint
to tie your shoes.

Yet conservative administrations can't seem to do anything but drive the economy into the ground and start foreign wars. Since the 70s, conservatives have been unable to hold onto power not because Americans became more liberal (Nixon elected in 1968 and re-elected in 72 at the height of the counter-culture) but because of failure and disgrace - because they wiped out peace and prosperity and left paranoia and ruin in their wake. If we are going to make sweeping generalizations, why not make them based in fact?

 
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