Wealth gap creating a social time bomb

[Indigo Blue]

Wealth gap creating a social time bomb

• Race behind division in US cities, says UN report

• Beijing is most egalitarian place in the world

John Vidal, environment editor
The Guardian, Thursday October 23 2008

Growing inequality in US cities could lead to widespread social unrest and increased mortality, says a new United Nations report on the urban environment.

In a survey of 120 major cities New York was found to be the ninth most unequal in the world and Atlanta, New Orleans, Washington, and Miami had similar inequality levels to those of Nairobi, Kenya and Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Many were above an internationally recognised acceptable "alert" line used to warn governments.

"High levels of inequality can lead to negative social, economic and political consequences that have a destabilising effect on societies," said the report. "{They} create social and political fractures that can develop into social unrest and insecurity."

According to the annual State of the World's cities report from UN-Habitat, race is one of the most important factors determining levels of inequality in the US and Canada.

"In western New York state nearly 40% of the black, Hispanic and mixed-race households earned less than $15,000 compared with 15% of white households. The life expectancy of African-Americans in the US is about the same as that of people living in China and some states of India, despite the fact that the US is far richer than the other two countries," it said.

Disparities of wealth were measured on the "Gini co-efficient", an internationally recognised measure usually only applied to the wealth of countries. The higher the level, the more wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer people.

"It is clear that social tension comes from inequality. The trickle down theory {that wealth starts with the rich} has not delivered. Inequality is not good for anybody," said Anna Tibaijuka, head of UN-Habitat, in London yesterday.

The report found that India was becoming more unequal as a direct result of economic liberalisation and globalisation, and that the most unequal cities were in South Africa and Namibia and Latin America. "The cumulative effect of unequal distribution {of wealth} has been a deep and lasting division between rich and poor. Trade liberalisation did not bring about the expected benefits."


Continued @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/23/population-egalitarian-cities-urban-growth

[Hardrada]

1. We've had wide disparities before and a lot of bloody repression too.

[GeorgeGist]

2. SOCIAL time bombs are a good response ...

to ANTI-SOCIALism.

[G_j]

3. been ticking for a good long while...

:think:

[formercia]

4. It was all a lie.

"Trade liberalisation did not bring about the expected benefits."

[malaise]

5. I downloaded the Executive summary

http://measureofamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/ahdr-execsumm.pdf

This hit me:
The US infant mortality rate is on par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia and Poland. If the US rates were equal to that of first-ranked Sweden, twenty-one thousand more American babies would have lived to celebrate their first birthday in 2005.

What do Fundies mean by pro-life policies mean again?

[formercia]

6. Poor babies die from lack of social services and inadequate prenatal care.

I would bet that few of them would come from the top 1% of the socio-economic ladder.