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Closed AccountMay 30, 2011
Oh wow. All the charts on one page and I didn't event have to leave Digg.
miklkitMay 30, 2011
Quick, easy and convincing proof that America is no longer a functioning democracy but is now a Corporatocracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joo90ZWrUkU
Another day older and deeper in debt
I owe my soul to the Company Store.
Work your fingers to the bone
and what do you get?
bony fingers!
bony fingers.....
yurmutha412May 30, 2011
According to this Canada is doing so much better than the US, yet when I go up there fishing the people aren't doing very well. The jobs don't pay very well. Most of the roads are gravel.
The trouble with disparity is that it doesn't mention average wage, so if everyone is doing poorly, that's a good thing according to the charts. We may be like Russia according to the charts, but if you measured real wealth, there would be huge difference between a poor Russian and a poor American. This is more skewering of the facts so Socialism can be integrated further into America, but in reality, it brings very few advantages. It just makes everyone poorer and therefore there is less disparity between the rich and the poor.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
taiyoryuMay 31, 2011
One Canadian sport-fishing town isn't representative of all of Canada.
yurmutha412May 31, 2011
True, but it's a little odd that with all those stats, there are no standard of living stats for countries. Instead we are lead to believe that the US is at the bottom because of inequality. Take a look at Spain, which ranks a nice light green like the rest of Europe, yet has some of the highest unemployment in the world, about 20 percent last I looked.
novenatorMay 30, 2011Submitter
Great share miklkit! Love that song. Of course I'm a working man, so it's hard not to.
anomaly100May 29, 2011
I can't fathom the reasons the govt has for such an astounding amount of money going to military spending. Can't we cut back, or is it more important to keep the elderly sick and eradicate Medicare....
betteroffedMay 30, 2011
This. The American military in its current state is nothing more than a bloated federal jobs program. WAY too big and way out of control.
anomaly100May 30, 2011
Eggzactly!
betteroffedMay 30, 2011
If life was a game of the board game "RISK", America would be winning. But unfortunately, it's not; and I'm left to wonder why we still have a huge military base in Germany.
taiyoryuMay 31, 2011
Yet, I don't know of any GOP representative (save Ron Paul and by extension Rand Paul) who wants to cut defense spending to a reasonable level no matter how much they say they're against welfare (ignoring the fact that more red states receive more Federal funding than they pay in taxes).
MattBal4Oct 14, 2011
Wasn't it Eisenhower who warned about this very eventuallity move than 50 years ago - sheeple are starting to awake from their zombie slumber.
scamper22May 30, 2011
Well yeah... technology and efficiency all but ensure this.
Technology and efficiency allows small numbers of people to serve huge numbers of people. The people at the top of the 'small number' of people get big money.
Think of Google. It can replace all the libraries, blockbusters, music stores, printers... for the entire world all with a mere 25000 people.
Previously you needed a local store for each thing.
The same is true for Walmart. Their massive computing and freight system allows them to be very efficient. All the 'intelligence' is at their head offices and computing systems.
It is a natural result of technology that we end up with a very egalitarian class (one big worker class... not much of a middle class)... and some huge wealth at the top.
The problem you face... is the new wealth at the top... even if taxes at 100% and spread over everyone else, doesn't amount to much. Because we're so efficient.
Ill use Walmart again as an example. CEO earned about 21 million including options... Walmart has about 2.1 million employees. So if we were to tax the Walmart CEO at 100% and redistribute it amoung just the walmart employees./.. it would be about $10/year for each walmart employee. In short... next to nothing.
Let's remember, that the middle class is only the middle class as long as there is a lower class. What's happening now is there really aren't enough middle class jobs available... and that is mainly due to technology.
Outsourcing has hastened the process... but it was happening anyways.
But yeah, get angry at the rich... but taxing them even at 100% isn't going to solve the problem.
To summarize.
In previous times, the teacher/police officer could earn 80k while the waiter earned 20k, because there were lots of middle class private sector jobs (block buster manager, auto worker, call center worker, accountant....)
without the private sector jobs that have been lost due to automation and outsourcing, there isn't enough private sector money to pay for what people perceive to be middle class public sector wages.
Well people want egalitarianism... well they talk about it... but they don't really want it. They want privilege.
And we've made sure as a society to keep the privilege position.
We've made sure the public sector is 'better' than the working class and they are paid by government so that is not going to change.
We've made sure the financial class is 'better' than the working class by constantly encouraging borrowing and financial games (more immigration, cheap money, growth dependency...)
And then we wonder why society is struggling and we're in debt.
novenatorMay 30, 2011Submitter
People want a *chance* at the American Dream, and that chance has been in serious decline for the last 30 years of economics dominated by fiscal conservative policy. The rich get richer, the poor and middle class get the shaft.
It is NOT a result of tech and trade however. It is a direct result of the policies we currently have in place which tilt the playing field in favor the rich and big corporations to such a point that it makes it impossible for other folks/small businesses to win/compete.
We need a new way of doing things, and I would recommend the Nordic models which actually collect corporate taxes, tax the rich, have strong social safety nets, free health care and education, and there is a far stronger community feeling for the common good instead the "f**k you I got mine" philosophy of greed pushed in the US.
scamper22May 30, 2011
the nordic model only works for small homogenous export oriented countries.
The same is true for hyper capitalist singapore. Small and export oriented.
The United States cannot do what they do... any more than Greece can copy what Germany does.
We all cannot be exporters.
And any real wealth a country generates... is spread over its population.
So Singapore, Norway, Finland...all have export oriented economies and small population. So their export wealth can be spread over a small number of people.
The US with 300 million people has too many people that the wealth gets diluted.
Think of it this way. If Silicon Valley was its own country... it would be a huge export oriented nation and very wealthy.
But that wealth spread over 300 million people doesn't amount to much.
novenatorMay 30, 2011Submitter
I don't think it's as much of an export issue as it is an education and egalitarian issue. Those who work get to keep a much larger share of the wealth that they create in Nordic countries, and people start off with a much more level playing field thanks to an excellent educations system.
Not sure about Nordic countries being export oriented either, except in the tech industry (Nokia). Sweden, Denmark, and tiny Iceland are certainly not heavily dependent on exports. Homogeneity is irrelevant.
Singapore certainly has a lot of wealth in it, but like the US, it is primarily concentrated in the hands of a few rich elite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality
This is a matter of giving more people opportunity and economic freedom, rather than just having the fruits of their labor get absorbed by those who are already well off.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
MattBal4Oct 14, 2011
Good points and I would like to point out that The USA was founded as a "Republic" not a Democracy (rule by the masses/ mob rule mentality). State's Laws were intended to trump federal law; our Federal Government was to be VERRRRY limited in scope - obviously no longer how the modern era politicians see it. I was also under the impression being a political leader was to be an act of "public service" not network/career enhancing stop. Point is let each state chart it own course and proper or fail with out artificial influences/mandates from the Federal Gov (what genius decided it was a good idea to take corn out of the food supply and make ethanol - most likely a Wall Street Commodity trader. Switch grass ethanol anyone). Sorry for the mixed bag of comments but the more I learn the more you see all is connected - hopefully a few butterflies will start flapping their wings !!!
ren1999May 30, 2011
Very nice. I'll be book marking this.
mvgremillionMay 30, 2011
Now I'm not saying that our economy is perfectly fine buuttt......using wikipedia as reference material makes me skeptical to the accuracy of these graphs.
MattBal4Oct 14, 2011
Do you live in a cave, don't get out much and talk to your fellow man? The wealth disparity is all around. Talking to the current/recent college generation the amount they pay for tution, etc. now is down right criminal !!!!
Closed AccountMay 30, 2011
helpful.... :) ty
glitch82May 30, 2011
This is highly informative, and very interesting, but there are two things I couldn't help but notice weren't explained using these charts. First, how is it that we're ranking lower than a lot of nations on economic and public policy, yet we're still the number one economy in the world? Second, what sort of impact on unemployment and income would lowering the defense budget have? It's easy to talk about cutting defense spending, but that money, bloated as it might be, is actually supporting thousands of contractors and tens of thousands of jobs if not more.
MattBal4Oct 14, 2011
It would free up money to subsidize small bizness creation/grow, it might be useful to help subsidize college education so we can get back to a thought leadership position in a diverse set of industries. Not to mention if the budget was cut we could no longer maintain a cancerous/hate for America causing military philosophy/presence in nearly every nation on the planet (good for business though if you are in said arena).
Not in my back yard right, don't hurt the poor military industrial complex that is making a gazillion dollars in profits by spreading fear to the masses (specifically lobbying our politicians on how sacry the world is and how we will all be safer if we buy a few thousand of their latest inplements of death and destruction).
As everyone should know war is a great business model - the poster child for planned obsolescence [Google it if it is a new concept for you]. They selll arms and the like to both sides and then their homeys in the "lets help out the poor countries raveged by war" businesses - International banks and the like, MEGA Corp construction outfits [blow up a bridge/dam = a huge contract for "reconstruction"] I propose a radical idea, how about we start a fund for these types and all agree to just pay them a good living on the front end and skip the whole killing and blowing sh!t up. Peace to you and yours and let he without sin cast the first stone.
laradanversMay 30, 2011
chilling, telling
rxh26 days ago
thanks for sharing!
http://healthmarket.info/
MattBal4Oct 14, 2011
Thanks for sharing/compiling !!! This paints a pretty clear and disconcerting picture. We need to get back to a time when Industrial/Mega Corp leaders like Henry Ford had a philosophy that the line workers should be able to afford the cars they are building. Huge divide between the haves/have nots and on top of the staggering unemployment rate the % of "working poor" is probably much worse!
diggbert3000Oct 14, 2011
That's nice, except they show the US as "176th" in infant mortality because "#1" is the country with the highest infant mortality. That means we have the 47th best rate; 46 countries have lower mortality.
egeswenderJun 4, 2011
yep.
johnhhsuJun 1, 2011
I love all this data, very interesting and useful knowledge.
yaosioMay 30, 2011
socialism
bille3May 30, 2011
I see the Reddit sex ads have arrived on Digg.