The problem with this is that the rich are still investing and getting those higher returns while the poor are pulling out the markets and getting no return, and therefore the gap is widening. I'd argue that the spread in "disposable" income is a bigger cause for the widening gap though, and this directly leads to the investing issue.
Quote from: Sasquatch on October 16, 2014, 09:27:41 pmThe problem with this is that the rich are still investing and getting those higher returns while the poor are pulling out the markets and getting no return, and therefore the gap is widening. I'd argue that the spread in "disposable" income is a bigger cause for the widening gap though, and this directly leads to the investing issue. This.The media/day-trading thing is a red-herring as far as I can see; it might be different in the US but I can't remember the last time it was discussed in the press here.
I keep coming back to this chart (I posted a link to the whole World Bank report earlier in this thread). Globalisation/ free market believers emphasise the whole picture and especially the gains for the lowest 10% - 70% income group, who are almost all in developing countries, whilst others are looking at the shape in the 75%-100% zone, with that trough of developed world low-income workers getting "left behind".
dShark, could you really not understand the graph?
£25k net puts you in the top 1% globally for income so I'd imagine a lot of UKB are sitting pretty on the righty hand side if the graph.(Dodgy source: http://www.globalrichlist.com) Shark, could you really not understand the graph?
£25k net puts you in the top 1% globally for income so I'd imagine a lot of UKB are sitting pretty on the righty hand side if the graph.
I disagree, if these threads were left only to those who considered themselves 'experts' etc then this place would be much less interesting and less of the resource than it is.
But, as Sloper said, I think that any 'simmering unrest' is between low-income and mid/high income folk in developed nations. And not between low-income folk and multi-billionaires. The people with low-paying jobs struggling for quality of life in an expensive world, seeing the people with high-paying jobs swanning off into the distance, buying up houses to rent, getting better health-care and perpetuating the gap through expensive education. Perhaps?
What is interesting here is how the debate has now moved on to to what appears to be an general acceptance (or at least an absence of strident rejection) of the porposition that inequality between the '1%' and everyone else isn't much of an issue despite what Russell brand might say.
Glad I'm not the only one to disagree with this. Even from a non left perspective we are getting strong warnings that economies are built on healthy middle class growth (as things seem to be going into reverse in the west for the middle classes whilst the super rich are protected).
From my perspective we are are being scammed and robbed by the executive classes and their political cronies and they get bolder in this every year.
Actually, I don't think that's the case. I think there's a huge amount of simmering unrest in the group at the low point on that graph, which happens to be the lower class groups in developed nations. Which I think was more of the original question. Quote from: Sloper on October 17, 2014, 04:36:22 pmI disagree, if these threads were left only to those who considered themselves 'experts' etc then this place would be much less interesting and less of the resource than it is. [\quote]I don't agree that in the global sense there's people in the 10-20 %centile raging against those in the 20-30 %centile, nor other than in the dining rooms of Primrose Hill (cheap stereotype alert) do I think that people are raging in this country against the next centile above their income level: indeed, f anything in my experience the 'working poor' are more likely to rage against the people on benefits who are able to live a lifestyle not dissimilar to their own without putting in a full shift.Offwidth, as for the super rich and their cronies gaming the system to maintain their privileged, you find this more in corrupt and often (though of course not exclusively) 'leftist' states, in liberal capitalist democracies the ability of even the most wealthy plutocrat to manipulate elections is very limited indeed.Finally I would suggest that economic growth is mainly derived by expansion of the working class i.e. the 30-60 %centile as they are, a. more numerous b. less likely to save/invest and c. more likely to follow consumerist trends, (snob alert).
Finally I would suggest that economic growth is mainly derived by expansion of the working class i.e. the 30-60 %centile as they are, a. more numerous b. less likely to save/invest and c. more likely to follow consumerist trends, (snob alert).
But that's not really what's happening. The middle class has seen quite good growth, not on the scale of the supebr rich, or on the scale of the developing nations, but still solid growth. The least growth seems to be at the lower end of developed nations. I'd argue that the bitching of the middle class is more do to with the "keeping up with the Jones"....most of the execs are deriving a large portion of their money from shareholdings increases, which are also held by huge institutional investors. These huge institutional investers are generally operating with the money from the middle class, so the middle class is also benefitting. This is where the poor are losing massive ground.
