Value of all gold ever mined: $ 009,120,000,000,000 +
Value of World liquid assets: $ 072,120,000,000,000 +
Value of proven oil reserves: $ 124,000,000,000,000 =
___________________________________________________
Sum of all of the above stuff:$ 020,524,000,000,000 is greater than:
Size of derivatives mkt ('09):$ 439,000,000,000,000
So by framing things in terms of households, you can make it look like there's more "inequality" than there really is.Something similar happens for poverty.
Value of all gold ever mined: $ 009,120,000,000,000 +
Value of World liquid assets: $ 072,120,000,000,000 +
Value of proven oil reserves: $ 124,000,000,000,000 =
___________________________________________________
Sum of all of the above stuff:$ 205,240,000,000,000 is greater than:
Size of derivatives mkt ('09):$ 439,000,000,000,000• There was considerable income mobility of individuals in the U.S. economy duringposted by desjardins at 10:17 AM on November 21, 2011 [5 favorites]
the 1996 through 2005 period as over half of taxpayers moved to a different income quintile over this period.
• Roughly half of taxpayers who began in the bottom income quintile in 1996 moved up to a higher income group by 2005.
• Among those with the very highest incomes in 1996 – the top 1/100 of 1 percent – only 25 percent remained in this group in 2005. Moreover, the median real income of these taxpayers declined over this period.
• The degree of mobility among income groups is unchanged from the prior decade (1987 through 1996).
• Economic growth resulted in rising incomes for most taxpayers over the period from 1996 to 2005. Median incomes of all taxpayers increased by 24 percent after adjusting for inflation. The real incomes of two-thirds of all taxpayers increased over this period. In addition, the median incomes of those initially in the lower income groups increased more than the median incomes of those initially in the higher income groups.
...the poorest fifth of households contain 25 million fewer people than the fifth of households with the highest incomes.Is that really "a lot"? Unless I've totally goofed my math, that would be only a five percent variation from equal distribution across the quintiles. I always get a little suspicious when people talk in terms of percentages throughout an argument, then drop down to raw numbers for the "surprising" conclusion. Which is what he does there.
For example, the money-income-based distribution treats an income of $30,000 for a single-person household and a family household similarly, while the equivalence-adjusted income of $30,000 for a single-person household would be more than twice the equivalence-adjusted income of $30,000 for a family household with two adults and two children. [...]posted by desjardins at 10:36 AM on November 21, 2011
For both 2009 and 2010, the Gini index was lower based on an equivalence-adjusted income estimate than on the traditional moneyincome estimate, suggesting a more equal income distribution. [...]
[At] the lower end of the income distribution there are a higher concentration of single-person households and smaller family sizes in relation to those at the upper end of the distribution. Thus, equivalence adjusting increases the relative income of people living in lower-income groups. (from pages 10-11)
then you have a 6% chance of making it to the top 20%. I suppose it depends on whether you think one in seventeen is "common".Complete, perfect mobility would be a 20% chance. Yet "it depends on whether you think one in five is common" would still work pretty well as snarky rhetoric. I think the rhetoric may be misleading.
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posted by Plutor at 8:47 AM on November 21, 2011 [5 favorites]