Are These The Worst Governments In the World?

Question

I saw on http://en.wikipedia.org & on the World Bank's Development Report site that the US & Russia are very unequal societies, compared to the other nations. While most of Europe is more equal than us in terms of how big the gap between rich and poor is, and in terms of 'what percentage of income is earned by the richest 10%', S Africa & S America are the most unequal.
The comparison really makes us look like we have stopped trying to help our poor, like we don't care and are ruled by the very richest with no say given to the others. Is that so? Does being this unequal prove that they have the worst form of democracy, the least caring government & the most selfish society? And how can we change this?
According to the rankings, these are listed by the most unequal first: Brazil, S Africa, Columbia, Chile, Ethiopia, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Thailand, Iran, India, Turkey, USA, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Israel, Germany, UK, Italy Australia Spain France Canada Japan Fin&Swe

Answer 1

YES THEY ARE

Answer 2

1. the world bank lists a rich nation as one whose income is more than 10,300 per capita. The U.S poverty rate for a family of four is 22,000 or 8,000 per capita (almost making our poor a wealthiest nation).

2. I searched the World Bank's website for almost an hour and could find no record of your statistics.

3. Statistics easily produce the results you want them too. (i.e defining who is wealthy and who is poor is very subjective)

My question would then be, what effects has this had on the economies where great wealth gaps occur versus the economies with smaller wealth gaps, or do the poor live more desperate lives in these countries compared to countries with more equal wealth gaps?

From the limited amount of information offered I really don't see a "real" answer to your question, but merely opinionated ones.

Answer 3

Well statistics can always lie. When computing the gini coefficient, which is what I think "equality" must have been based on in this study, I would think that one should look at which people have been included. I mean the difference between enormously wealthy people who may be outliers and an extremely small minority could easily mess with the results.

Answer 4

I would have to say yes - and you forgot to mention that America jails more of it's citizens than any other country in the world. 2 2.million Americans are behind bars - and 1 million of them are Black or Latino, even though Blacks and Latinos make up only 25% of the country's population!

Answer 5

But it's a relative thing. The poor in the U.S. in fact compare favorably to people of average wealth in a lot of countries with narrow gaps between wealth and poverty.

Answer 6

Perhaps the best chance for you would be to move to North Korea, it must be more equal, it's not on your list of bad guys. That way you can have equality and we can simply have freedom.

Answer 7

WOOT! Go Canada.