Re: how to compare living standards


"William F Hummel" <wfhummel@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:6aqc5213ipelllmgib1b7ask5u30c4gp7k@xxxxxxxxxx


..... The top quintile owned
80 percent.

jeb:

That sound like the 80/20 division that seems to apply to just about
everything. The top 20% have 80% of the total.

If true, that's an ugly statistic.

.......

.The bottom quintile had no wealth on average. They
either have no assets, or their debt equals or exceeds their assets.

jeb:

I think the real concern is not with the wealth or income distribution at
a
given time, but with the degree that individuals change their location in
the distribution with time. If few young people own a house free and
clear,
or have a high income job, but if most of them do when they are 50+,
then I
don't see that as being a "problem".

Well, you have assumed away the problem with your premise.

Hi,

Does that mean you agree that mobility is more important than inequality?

And do you agree that wealth increases with age as a generalization?

....There are
a great many poor elderly folks who have never had enough money to buy
a house.

Of course. Just as there are many heavy smokers who live to 100. But I am
looking at correlations and general patterns, not unusual exceptions.


Is the distribution of "wealth" however defined, more important than the
distribution of consumption?

Who can say? Is revolution better than war?

Note that consumption is distributed more evenly than wealth.

Agreed, if you are talking about calorie intake.

Calorie intake is probably inversely correlated with wealth or income, but I
was referring to the distribution of spending.

....But tamale pie isn't
quite the same as porterhouse steak.

Isn't that a matter of taste?

..And a 1988 Honda Civic hatchback
isn't quite the same as a 2006 Lexus RX 330.

Er, which gets the better milage? (I have never had a car that gets less
than 30 mpg and would not want one, especially today)

But what if the "rich" are old and the "poor" are young? And the old
rich
today were the poor young of 50 years ago?

Yes, most of us accumulate some wealth over time.

Yes.

....But how do you
explain the huge number of elderly people who don't own the average
$12,500,000 or even $62,000?

But the elderly are the richest age group in the US. The "wealth gap" is in
part a measure of how much wealth people do accumulate during their
lifetime.

...What was it that Marie Antoinette said
about the poor?

In the France of her day, I think the problem was less the gap between rich
and poor than the lack of opportunity for the poor to move up.

Speaking of France, isn't France supposed to be a lot more egalitarian than
the USA? So why do they have so many more riots and strikes than we do?


.....The inequality is no doubt worse in 2006.

Er, you mean in the USA? Because that is not the case world wide. The
world has been getting a lot "more equal", and I think that is good.
And the growing worldwide equality is related to the growing inequality
in
the USA.

Yes, I do mean the USA, and that is precisely what is worrisome. We
are headed toward greater social friction every year that the wealth
and income gap widens.

"Social Friction" You mean like they have in France?

And do we have more of that Social Friction now than we did during the 1960'
and 70's, when the wealth and income gaps were much smaller but major US
cities were being burned?

...The (adult) immigrant worker, with little
wages and no wealth but playing a significant part of wealth creation
in the USA, is even today showing us what may be in store down the
road.

Looks like lots of people are eager to move here for those low wages and
that hard work.
And one cause of the wage gap here is the large inflow of immigrants.



,,,,,,,
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jim blair (jeblair@xxxxxxxx) Madison Wisconsin USA.
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