Looking for the land of opportunity

[CiaranM]

the ethnic make up of the UK is predominantly white (around 98.6% if you group White British, White Irish and White Other together)

India and Pakistan provide around 3.1%, Black around 2%, and other Asian around 1.6%)

u wanna try those %'s again Iain !!! :roll:

well to be fair Ciaran, those figures are from the 2001 census, but I would not imagine that the intervening 8 years have seen that dramatic a change.

Yes, they did surprise me though.

it's the fact that they add up to 105.3% that surprises me !!! :roll: :roll:

[Stramash]

Although according to forbes Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are the two richest people in the world i doubt the top 10 is made up of many more americans.

In response to an earlier post there are 4 waltons at #'s 11,12,13 & 14 in the rich list although Gates and Buffet were both self made.

I did mention that there were only 3 Americans in the Top 10 (though yes, the Waltons have 11- 14. More non vintage Krug John boy?)

Gates and Buffet, though self made to an extent, both had fairly comfortable starts to life, while Larry Ellison started life in a single parent teenage family in New York, so in many ways has come further than Gates or Buffet.

[condotown]

Ummmm ...

I really believe you pulled those numbers out of your a*s...

Well I guess THAT goes to show this is a subject that you know next to know nothing about.

You will find all the data that I used here (A11) (although I did write the post without looking at it as I have read it before so I might be out by the odd US$1k.)

http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/oss/oss2/2007/bull09_SCF_nobkgdscreen.pdf

Incidentally you can also see that even after the 13% wealth tax, the top 10% are 50% or so wealthier end 2007 than 1998, while bottom 50% net wealth hardly increased.

If you wish to adjust all the data to bring it up to date, it is possible to do with a reasonable degree of accuracy using the Q1 2009 US Household Balance sheet data here...

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/z1r-5.pdf

Personally I dont see this reallocation of wealth as particularly unfair given how much the very wealthy have benefited relatively over the last ten years (and also that resolving the debt crisis and recapping the banks is going to have to have some costs for someone.)

If however you do still think it unfair, you should also consider the income side of the equation. The top 10% wealthiest have seen their incomes rise 50% between 1998 and 2007 while the bottom 50% in terms of net worth only saw incomes rise 15% (that's in the data too).

Rob for president of the world!

Wouldn't that be so nice?

I admit that I know next to nothing in EVERY subject.

The reason we seem to be in disagreement is that you were suggesting some pipe dream that will NEVER happen and I was talking about the reality of the way life is.

Citing the statistics of how much the rich COULD afford to let the underprivileged use to party for a half a year before they are broke again accomplishes what?

Also.. I still say those stats published by the Feds are questionable at best.

There is no government with more corruption or unaccounted trillions disappearing than the US.

One thing that is probably true is that we both thank our lucky stars that we have found a personal comfort level in this life for ourselves... with enough excess time to waste allowing us to bloviate on this site.

[Mister Moobs]

It's just a big game... and unless you have connections or luck, life is going to beat you down and force you to settle for less than you want or deserve.

Not really directed at you specifically dude, but, why does anyone deserve anything?

Because they were born?

Most people get about what they work for or what they are willing to take risks to obtain.

I say most. Obviously, I don't mean those who inherit wealth. Even that wealth, though. Someone took a risk and put in the hard hours to obtain.

Why should wealth be given to a bunch of folks sitting down in a trailor park who are too lazy to get off their butts and educate themselves and put in the work and take the risks necessary to improve their situation.

I don't understand that.

I grew up poor. I know lots of folks who live in these inner city areas and trailer park. They sit around watching Maury Povich type shows and reality TV and reading the National Enquirer and People magazine and complaining that someone else needs to make their lives better. Lots of them complain that someone should make them happy because they deserve happiness. They lament the injustice of a world where they can't simple sit around and drink Budweiser and eat mayonnaise and bologna sandwiches and watch the lotto dollars roll in as they pop their Xanax and other mind numbing drugs.

Why does anyone deserve a better life automatically? I think if you are willing to make it happen, you deserve it. If you are waiting for someone else to do it for you, you deserve that. Lots of waiting and disappointment.

Even our [the US] Declaration of Independence speaks only to the right to Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness...

The right to the pursuit of happiness. Not it's certainty or guarantee.

When did wealth which so many equate to happiness become an entitlement?

I thought America was the land of entitlement. It seems as though others have been afflicted with this mental and emotional ailment as well.

[robbie36]

The reason we seem to be in disagreement is that you were suggesting some pipe dream that will NEVER happen and I was talking about the reality of the way life is.

OK give a bit of a break here. The US has a US$1.5trn bad debt problem, under capitalised banks, high unemployment, massive fiscal deficit. To the extent it recovers taxes will rise and growth will fall. You really cant handle this as an income problem the median real post tax income of an employee has actually fallen over the last 30 years.

Why should it be a pipe dream? All I hear is ten years of lost growth. You can spread the tax over 3 years but US$6trn solves everything. Banks, a lot of the deficit, a resumption of growth.

Citing the statistics of how much the rich COULD afford to let the underprivileged use to party for a half a year before they are broke again accomplishes what?

You have an extremely weird view of the world if you believe that the bottom 50% of households have a lower marginal utility of consumption than the top 10%. It pays off US$1.5trn bad debt and repays Tarp, US$2trn of credit card finance, probably another US$500trn into housing, US$500trn into consumption etc.

Also.. I still say those stats published by the Feds are questionable at best.

Maybe they are but they basically stack up. The rule of thumb for a capitalist state is that 1% own 33% net worth, another 9% own another 33% and the bottom half own 5%. The US stacks up pretty well except the bottom half own 3%. If you were to look at the total US household as a company balance sheet, their debt to equity is 28% and net worth 4.7x debt.

You're right about the comfort levels. What struck me most in all those stats is not that the poor were poor or that the rich were rich but that the middle guy was poor also. The median single guy with no children under 55 earnt US$31k per year in 2007 and had a net worth of US$18k. And he was better off in real terms on both counts in 1975.

[Hobbes]

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." (The Communist manifesto By Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels)

True back in 1847 and now.

:study:

[Mister Moobs]

Never felt beat down by life. Now the sun in the Sinai beat me down like a crying little ***** but I had a hell of a tan after a year there. So it wasn't all bad.

[Ngairo]

I cannot believe Scotland missed out in the rankings as a Land of Opportunity.....

Whenever I'm there we get to drink beer and whiskey....at the same time!!!

[robbie36]

You know, you may well believe this but it simply isnt true for say a country like the US.

If you took 13% of total net wealth from the top 10% of households in the US or US$500,000 per household and distributed US$100,000 per household for each household in the bottom 50% of households (60m households) there would be a net transfer of US$6trn.

I have obviously created wealth at least in a relative sense for the bottom half of households, increasing net worth almost 5 fold. As wealth distribution is so unequal it makes next to no difference to the wealthy, the top 10% still own about 5 times more than the bottom 50% and of course the average person in the top 10% net worth is about 25x that of someone in the bottom half, so we dont have to distribute things equally.

More to the point if they did give up their 13% and gave it to the bottom half all those bad loans would go away, the banks would be recapitalized, the Government would get its TARP money and half the Government deficit would evaporate.

The bottom 25% of housholds net worth would increase from US$-2k to US$98k and the next 25% of households net worth would increase from US$56k to US$156k.

Sounds good. So the answer to the US's problems is communism? 8)

So what does this solution have to do with communism?

The top 10% are still 25x richer than the average in the bottom 50%

I have only taxed you 13% of your wealth.

You are on average worth US$3.5m (after the tax) and earning US$350k a year - your net worth and income are up 50% over the last 9 years even after this tax.

Plus the tax has solved the banking crisis and the deficit so we wont raise any other taxes.

The good news is you can park your Aston Martin and it wont get scratched

I do have a Communist solution but it involves shooting you and then taking all your money. You choose.

[olympos]

@ pandorea: Thank you very very much for your welcome message!

@ Im_A_Bitch:

My laughter was about the country number 6 in a top list of 5 !!!!

i am still giggling when i see it again

Top 5 countries for social mobility are ;

1.Norway

2. Canada/Denmark/Sweden

3. Finland

4. Germany

5. UK

6. US

never mind...

[Mister Moobs]

don't feed the troll Robbie

esp. the bigoted and rabid anti-American trolls

[Mister Moobs]

For some reason I'm thinking of Michael Moore's documentary "SIKCO". Get a DVD and give it a chance, will you?

I thought Michael Moore was actually Fred Savage in disguise??

:?

I thought Michael Moore ate Fred Savage. :shock:

[eagle]

don't feed the troll Robbie

esp. the bigoted and rabid anti-American trolls

You think he a a bigot for the same reason people accuse you in the Israel threads.

[robbie36]

When I suggested that the top 10% transferred thirteen% of their wealth to give the bottom 50% of households USdollars 6 trillion I was called a commie (a little bit unfair that one), it was called a pipe dream (possibly fair as the rich and powerful dont give up much).

But US dollars 100,000 to 60 million households would solve the recession, financial crisis, debt crisis, which at the end of the day someone has to pay for anyway.

I do understand that the rich are better looking, more intelligent etc but they can give away a bit (P.S. I am happy to keep it all.)

I liked this recent research on the incomes of the top 0.01%. They earn something lie six hundred times the average income.

Obviously their share of income has gone up six fold (compared to everyone else) in the last thirty years so to me paying thirteen % doesnt seem that unreasonable. It doesnt exactly create me into a commie as they will still be 5x richer relative to everyone else (and say earning 500x the average income) even after this major sacrifice.

They should at least remember that if it wasnt for TV and the Xbox, there is a fair chance that everyone would be scratching their cars, rebelling and placing their severed head on a pole.

[GoodKarma]

When I suggested that the top 10% transferred thirteen% of their wealth to give the bottom 50% of households USdollars 6 trillion I was called a commie (a little bit unfair that one), it was called a pipe dream (possibly fair as the rich and powerful dont give up much).

But US dollars 100,000 to 60 million households would solve the recession, financial crisis, debt crisis, which at the end of the day someone has to pay for anyway.

I do understand that the rich are better looking, more intelligent etc but they can give away a bit (P.S. I am happy to keep it all.)

I liked this recent research on the incomes of the top 0.01%. They earn something lie six hundred times the average income.

Obviously their share of income has gone up six fold (compared to everyone else) in the last thirty years so to me paying thirteen % doesnt seem that unreasonable. It doesnt exactly create me into a commie as they will still be 5x richer relative to everyone else (and say earning 500x the average income) even after this major sacrifice.

They should at least remember that if it wasnt for TV and the Xbox, there is a fair chance that everyone would be scratching their cars, rebelling and placing their severed head on a pole.

very interesting numbers and stats. post the link I would like to devel into this a bit more...thx

[robbie36]

Most of the data on wealth and income for the top 10% is produced by peietty and Saez who have been producing these stats for 20 years also.

http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2007.pdf

If you want a detailed wealth and income distribution report for the US by far the best numbers are produced by the Federal Reserve in their triannual SCF report. Unfortunately the last one is dated end 2007.

The financial crisis was obviously caused and exacerbated by the massive increases in inequality of income and wealth (mostly caused by loose monetary policy). It will be interesting to see if they can avoid this issue or whether blame will be apportioned.

For instance gross household wealth is over US dollar 60 trn and the financial institutions will lose US dollar 2 trn lending US dollar 14 trn against them.

Over the period that the top 0.01% increased their incomes 6 fold verses the average, the median employee saw his real income actually fall over a period of thirty years.

The household income figures are quite misleading - they show a rise but it is entirely due to an increased participation of wives in the workforce. By the time you adjust the figures (for increased child care etc) discretionary income falls. The number of personal banruptcies in the US has increased 8x since 1980.