A rising tide does not lift all boats (Vanity Fair)

[pokerfan]

May 2011
By Joseph E. Stiglitz

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.


Illustration by Stephen Doyle

It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall.

Some people look at income inequality and shrug their shoulders. So what if this person gains and that person loses? What matters, they argue, is not how the pie is divided but the size of the pie. That argument is fundamentally wrong. An economy in which most citizens are doing worse year after year—an economy like America’s—is not likely to do well over the long haul. There are several reasons for this.

Read the rest: http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105

[JHB]

1. Think of it more as a pool than a pie...

People doing work create wealth, i.e., add water to the pool. But if you extract water from the pool (for exclusive Jacuzzis or whatever) faster than new water comes in, the water level goes down.

or for another analogy,

The horses can run faster if they're cut loose from the stagecoach, but that don't deliver the goods to Dodge.

[LiberalEsto]

2. And the rich are peeing in the pool nt

[JHB]

5. Which ulitmately is peeing in their own pool, but that's a little too abstract for them.

[pokerfan]

7. That would be the trickle-down (nt)

[eleny]

3. That "learn too late" factor has been driving me nuts forever

[Donnachaidh]

4. no shit sherlock.

Those of us left *behind* are having buckets of shite slung on our heads from those ivory towers....

[Odious justice]

6. Don't worry. History is full of examples of the rich and powerful getting what they deserve.

It happened in "The Goonies". Also in "Meatballs" and "Revenge of the Nerds". So, if not history, the American Movie Classics station is full of examples.

[EOTE]

8. Damn those Alpha Betas! NT

[pokerfan]

9. Will the lifeboats be seated according to class? (nt)

[woo me with science]

10. K&R

I was told by two posters at DU yesterday that President Obama has already "handled" the economy.

Thank you for the reality check.

[Quantess]

11. Just look at Mexico, for example.

The richest person in the world is Mexican.

[riderinthestorm]

12. Stiglitz should be in Obama's cabinet. This article is waaaayyy too important to drop. K&R nt