We Are A High Inequality Country - What Does That Say About Us?

Question

I saw on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_countries_by_income_equality
that the US & the UK are very unequal societies, compared to the other wealthy nations. Why is it that the rest of Europe in particular (except for Russia, Turkey & Israel), plus Japan, India, Canada, Egypt, Bangladesh, even Rwanda are now more equal than us in terms of how big is the gap between rich and poor.

The comparison really makes us look like we have stopped trying to help our poor catch up, like we don't care and are ruled by the very richest with no say to the others. Is that so? And how can we change this?

Answer 1

"Give us your tired, your poor your huddled masses yearning to be free."

That might have something to do with it.

Answer 2

I agree that this is a very unequal society. According to a recent (proper) newspaper report (may have been "The Times" or "The Guardian") the gap between rich and poor is now greater than it has ever been.

I think that the reason for this is that people have become unaware of their own inequality. Credit has made it possible for poor people to have whatever they want. They don't feel poor because they can afford to put food on the table, have posh cars and go on holiday to exotic locations once a year. Obviously this isn't real wealth, but it has the same effect. In this way credit is a more effective bondage than serfdom ever was.

You can never escape from Experian.

There is a real dearth of intellectual wealth as well. People are actually stupider than they were years ago and their knowledge of history is so inadequate that they cannot see that they are being kept in bondage by giant financial corporations. Obviously this is an ideal state for any government and so no-one is going to go out of their way to alter this state of affairs. People are blind and pliable.

It's a very big question as to how this can be altered. I don't think that anyone should look to the state to alter it - why would they - it would be utterly counter-productive. I think that until majority of people start to read and think abstractedly through their own volition this will continue. And I can't see that changing in a hurry, when there are so many inportant things to buy on that most flexible of friends, can you??

Answer 3

America is the land of opportunity, not the land of guaranteed outcome. You cannot guarantee outcome unless you drag everyone down to the lowest common denominator.

Look at the US demographics. More than a third of the population have below average IQs, little capacity for skilled labor, and little or no English skills. What do you expect to happen when you throw that many "needy" people into the economy?

There was a time when America could offer these people gainful employment. It wasn't that long ago when fewer than 12% of the population had any college education, and yet somehow the remaining 88% managed to make the US the richest country on the planet with nothing more than a high school education or less.

Those days are gone. The manufacturing jobs, the assembly lines, they have either been sent overseas for the foreign slave labor market or have been staffed here with illegal aliens who work for less than minimum wage.

Twenty-five years ago, when I first trained for computer programming (another entire industry that has been gutted by "outsourcing"), the first thing they taught us was "GIGO: Garbage In; Garbage Out".

You want to level the playing field? Bring up the average American IQ.

Answer 4

This will happen in any capitalist republic based government? Why? Because it's usually the rich that are elected and they tend to represent their group which is the rich. They only convince the poor that they will make change in order to get elected. This has been going on since the Greeks started the idea of an electoral government. The countries that have closed the gap tend to be more socialist than capitalist. We have such a huge gap because we do nothing about it. We would rather watch TV than protest. And when we do protest we take off of work which doesn't help our financial situation at all. We tend to wait until only revolution will change things. It's not the governments falt. It's out falt for doing nothing when we have the chance.

Answer 5

Should I not be more wealthy than the person next to me because I have worked hard, saved and watched the pennies.
1) Those on benefits already see the pointless task of trying to improve themselves when for every £1 they earn they loose £1 in benefits. They clearly see that they no better finanacially for trying and are worse off due to the fact that they now have to go out to work rather than sit home watchin TV all day.
2) The pensioner with a small pension is today actually worse off then the pensioner who did not save for the future. Can this be considered fair.
3) As for Poverty, this a complete joke. In todays Liberal world if you do not have a Computer / DVD player / Mobile phone you are considered to be living in poverty. How can you end poverty when the goal post which defines poverty keeps moving. Hence, the Make Poverty History campaign will go on forever ....

Answer 6

Because American workers and the poor dont do the right thing we will not unite together and stand for what is right, we take it up the tail pipe and continue on waiting for somebody else to take the stand and when that somebody does we check it out on CNN instead of getting behind them and uniting as one, we have set back and let a President wage a war on a country for no apparent reason except to please his own and we let the politicians set a non living wage and let the system make laws and spend huge amounts of money on bullcrap projects that suit them not us and we can vote them in and we cant fire them until after the damage is done. We spend all our time watching the events on tv and reading it in the paper when we need to all walk out and go hand in hand for one day and demand the change and demand it now,can this be done yes we can move together as one we can all tell the phone company and the power companies to cut us off all at the same time if we do this once then they will pay attn i assure you it would be chaos but a short time if we all walk and we all demand it will hapen,will it no because most will sit right there and take it afraid not to make the move and guess what the same question will come up after we die off and somebody will answer it again the same way and still nothing will be done because we will not unite in a country that claime we are UNITED

Answer 7

Believe me.. YOu don't have a problem being a unequal society. How does it matter as long as your basic living standard is much better than any other countries you mentioned?.

Inequality is bound to happen because all are not with the same environment, intelligence, application, persistence, motivation etc.,.

As long as majority people live happily without the poverty, then that society is doing good.

If you take the example of Bangladesh, Eqypt etc., those the gap is less, their living standards are low. So, those societies are grief striken.

Answer 8

Well the problem here is twofold: 1. Capitalism (on which our economic system is based) rewards those who work at success ( for the most part) and makes no built in provision for raising those who do not reach the highest echelons of the economic food chain. 2.our definition of poverty is hardly poverty in the rest of the world. While alot of Americans are struggling to make ends meet, they do not have to worry about the most basic things that people in developing countries have to struggle for on a daily basis. Also, why is it that we always deride the rich for simply being wealthy? Since when is it a crime to have money? Don't disparage those who have it, work to be equal with them. That is truly the best gift of the American way of life, the ability and opportunity to become that wealthy.

Answer 9

Well, we can stop paying money for people to not work and to keep breeding unwanted children just for the extra money they get from the government.

Instead, we can put our efforts towards work programs that train people in skilled labor so that they can become productive citizens who earn their own way in life.

Once the government assistance is cut off, people will be motivated to complete their education and find and retain jobs.

We can continue with food programs so that no one goes hungry while their training is going on. And we can continue with medical assistance (free clinics) as well.

We can also shut out all illegal immigration. Close the borders. Deport every illegal immigrant there is. Legal immigration is still encouraged though. Nothing wrong with that -- it's how our country was founded.

Education is the key -- without it, our nation and the world are doomed.

Answer 10

once you're rich - and /small/ - you could fund socialist classes for a lengthy time period earlier your commence to break down, and, you could continually settle for immigration to prop up the socialist pyramid schemes a touch longer. Singapore, case in point, prospers on the backs of an underclass of imported confusing artwork. intense in line with-capita earning and intense degrees of boost will be done by smaller international places that deal with to construct reliable markets for his or her exports in additional suitable international places. it really is a sort it really is worked particularly nicely for Japan. That monetary prosperity will be siphoned off for social classes, because doing so would not harm their markets in those more suitable international places. In a really great united states of america, with a really great, mature monetary equipment, the case is diverse. each and each dollar diverted to social classes falls out of the wealth-era cycle and retards boost. there is not any important marketplace for exports to suck blood from to make up the adaptation. So, how can international places like Japan, Sweden or Singapore take exhilaration in socialist largese at the same time as very last economically rich? by promoting a great number of crap to u.s., it really is how. Oh, and yet another element, that is likely twist of destiny, yet Sweden and Denmark are 2 of the whitest international places in Europe. Japan and Singapore are both fairly racist - Japan to the upward push of being a 'monoculture.' And Germany and Japan were 2-thirds of the origninal Axis (of evil) in WWII. per chance no longer having qualms about putting your own variety above others helps, too?

Answer 11

Someone has to sweep the streets, clean hospitals, work in pubs and resturants.

Those that do get paid **** all.

Its not possible for everyone to have a high paid job! Because who then would sweep the streets! There aren't enough high paid jobs to go round, businesses can't afford it. If you educated every man in the country to degree level and beyond you would not be able to provide a degree level job for everyone. And some would have to sweep the streets.

And those who do sweep the streets get branded as "lazy" and forgotten about by those who need them to sweep their streets and clean their offices.