Tag Archives: inequality

 The bottom line – and the fundamental problem – seems to be clear: inequality rose because the labour movement lost out. Today’s lacking investment means that technology does not substitute for labour – the normal trajectory in capitalism, instead cheap labour substitutes for technology. As a result, productivity stalls. After decades of right-wing policies, stripping away protections for workers, the flexibilisation of labour markets, destroying ‘government rigidities’ and waging wars...

Many assets have the potential to become valuable without actual accumulation. Writing in the initial stages of capitalism, Ricardo recognized the unusual position which landlords occupy: they control a non-reproducible asset, which generates rents under expanded capital accumulation. These rents extract away from surplus value and get capitalized into higher land prices. His vision was partially invalidated by gains in agrarian productivity but the history of wealth-income ratios testifies...

It’s inequality. By James Kwak This American Life‘s forays into politics and economics are generally less satisfying than their ordinary storytelling fare. That’s especially true when they try to answer some specific question, like “What is wrong with the Democratic Party?”—the subject of a segment last month. The story did have some telling moments, however, most vividly when moderate Congresswoman Cheri Bustos was trying to pitch the party’s forgettable and already-forgotten “Better...

It’s inequality. By James Kwak This American Life‘s forays into politics and economics are generally less satisfying than their ordinary storytelling fare. That’s especially true when they try to answer some specific question, like “What is wrong with the Democratic Party?”—the subject of a segment last month. The story did have some telling moments, however, most vividly when moderate Congresswoman Cheri Bustos was trying to pitch the party’s forgettable and already-forgotten “Better...

While SRW avoids the "C"-word, consciously or unconsciously, social, political and economic asymmetry is about class at bottom. But his analysis points to it.InterfluiditySegregation is a normal goodSteve Randy Waldman

Princeton economist estimates there are 5.3 million Americans who are ‘absolutely poor’ by global standards MarketWatchKey Words: U.S. has more truly destitute people than either Sierra Leone or Nepal, says Nobel economist Deaton Greg Robb | Senior Economics Reporter

Great idea!BTW, if you are not aware of Open Culture, it has gathered a lot of free resources. Open CultureRobert Reich Makes His UC Berkeley Course on Wealth and Inequality in America Available on Facebook Dan Colman

Productivity growth (the rate at which technology is displacing workers) had slowed to roughly 1.0 percent annually in the years since 2005. This compares to a 3.0 percent growth rate in the decade from 1995 to 2005 and the long Golden Age from 1947 to 1973. Most economists expect the rate of productivity growth to remain near 1.0 percent as opposed to returning back to something close to its 3.0 percent rate in more prosperous times.…  It is also worth noting that the high productivity...

Income disparity in India has become even more stark, showing that efforts to alleviate poverty and achieve more inclusive growth have had little success. A survey carried out recently by international rights group Oxfam revealed that the richest 1% in India cornered 73% of wealth generated in the country last year, Press Trust of India has reported. A similar survey last year showed that India’s richest 1% held 58% of the country’s total wealth — higher than the global figure of about...

The UK Guardian Editorial ran a sub-header yesterday (January 21, 2018) “Democracies will fall under the spell of populists like Donald Trump if they fail to deal with the fallout of globalisation?”, which I thought reflected the misunderstandings that so-called progressive have about ‘globalisation’ and its impacts on the capacities of the sovereign state. The UK Guardian Editorial was responding to the release of the latest Oxfam report (released January 16, 2018) – An Economy for the...