Ms. Jansen



Income inequality – concerned views:?1. Global Wealth:“The United States has such an unequal distribution of wealth so that it's in the league of corrupt underdeveloped countries, no longer in the league of the developed nations, according to the latest edition of the world's most thorough study of wealth-distribution.?The most authoritative source comparing wealth-concentration in the various countries is the successor to the reports that used to be done for the United Nations, now performed as the?Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook.?The latest (2013) edition of it?finds (p. 146) that in the U.S., 75.4% of all wealth is owned by the richest 10% of the people. The comparable figures for the other developed countries are: Australia 50.3%, Canada 57.4%, Denmark 72.2%, Finland 44.9%, France 51.8%, Germany 61.7%, Ireland 58.4%, Israel 68.9%, Italy 49.8%, Japan 49.1%, Netherlands 54.6%, New Zealand 57.6%, Norway 65.9%, Singapore 61.1%, Spain 54.0%, Sweden 71.1%, Switzerland 71.5%, and U.K. 53.3%. Those are the top 20 developed nations, and the U.S. has the most extreme wealth-concentration of them all.??In the U.S., the bottom 90% of the population own only 24.6% of all the privately held wealth, whereas in most of the developed world, the bottom 90% own around 40%; so, the degree of wealth-concentration in the U.S. is extraordinary (except for underdeveloped countries).”?Source: Eric Zuesse. Huffington Post. ?12/08/20132. Inequality is a Choice:??“While we broadly lament inequality, we treat it as some natural disaster imposed upon us. That’s absurd. The roots of inequality are complex and, to some extent, reflect global forces, but they also reflect our policy choices.?We as a nation have chosen to prioritize tax shelters over minimum wages, subsidies for private jets over robust services for children to break the cycle of poverty. And the political conversation is often not about free rides by corporations, but about free rides by the impoverished.”??Source: Nicholas Kristof. May 2, 2015. New York Times.?3. Bill Gates on Inequality:??“High levels of inequality are a problem—messing up economic incentives, tilting democracies in favor of powerful interests, and undercutting the ideal that all people are created equal.?Capitalism does not self-correct toward greater equality—that is, excess wealth concentration can have a snowball effect if left unchecked.?Governments can play a constructive role in offsetting the snowballing tendencies if and when they choose to do so.”?Extreme inequality should not be ignored—or worse, celebrated as a sign that we have a high-performing economy and healthy society. Yes, some level of inequality is built in to capitalism. As Piketty [an economist] argues, it is inherent to the system. The question is, what level of inequality is acceptable? And when does inequality start doing more harm than good?”?Source?Bill Gates. October 13, 2014. Gates Notes: The Blog of Bill Gates.Questions: What do these stats about wealth concentration in different countries suggest? Do they point to a problem, or not? What do you think about these statistics?Do you agree with Kristof that government policies contribute to inequality? Do you think that poses a problem? Or is it fair for the government to reward people who work hard? Do you agree with Gates’ points? Why or why not? What do you think about his comments in light of his being one of the 1%?Income Inequality – Not concerned views:1. Inequality can be a good thing:In the first place, growing inequality is most frequently the flip side of growing, not shrinking opportunity. In fact, inequality is the mechanism through which the market generates and spreads innovation, which in turn generates opportunities for millions of individuals. Every innovation has initially generated inequality in incomes, as their inventors exploit it commercially. The inequality, in turn, attracts new innovators, as well as imitators, rapidly spreading the initial innovation and improvements on it. In the process, they generate many new opportunities… That is, inequality is the mechanism that will spread the benefits of the new knowledge society across the entire world. Without it, there would be no incentive to spread it, and the world would lose the most exciting opportunity to increase its wealth and reduce its poverty since the emergence of the Industrial Revolution.Source: Manuel Hinds (former finance minister of El Salvador and worked at the World Bank), Quartz, June 24, 20132. Inequality isn’t a Problem:?“There is an immense amount of income inequality here and everywhere. I am not sure why that is a bad thing. Some people will just be better students, harder working, more clever, more ruthless than other people. Some people will have better family connections than others. Some people will have richer parents than others…But it’s inevitable that in a free society, some people will have more money than others.”??Source: By?Ben Stein?–?4.4.14. American Spectator.?3. Income Mobility:“"Income mobility is down!" "Poor people are locked into poverty!" Those are samples of popular nonsense peddled today.?It's true that today the rich are richer than ever. And the wealth gap between rich and poor has grown. Now the top 1 percent own more assets than the bottom 90 percent! But focusing on this disparity ignores the fact that over time, the rich and poor are not the same people. Oprah Winfrey once was on welfare. Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton was a farmhand.?When markets are free, poor people can move out of their income group. In America, income?mobility, which matters more than income inequality, has not really diminished. Economists at Harvard and Berkeley crunched the numbers on 40 million tax returns from 1971-2012 and discovered that mobility is pretty much what The Pew Charitable Trusts reported it was 30 years ago. Today, 64 percent of the people born to the poorest fifth of society rise out of that quintile…?The poor got richer, too. Yes, over the last 30 years, incomes of rich people grew by more than 200 percent, but according to the Congressional Budget Office, poor people gained 50 percent.”??Source: John Stossel. June 04, 2014. ?Questions:Do you agree with Hinds that inequality is actually just a viable outcome of a growing economy and new innovations? Do you agree with his idea that the inequality will level out after the boom time of a growing economy?Do you agree with Stein that inequality is inevitable in a free society? Is he right that it isn’t necessarily a problem? Do you agree with Stossel’s points? Why or why not?Paragraph Assignment Due Friday, 9/16 Choose the side that you agree with regarding the income inequality in AmericaShould America be concerned with income inequality or not? Consider:What evidence do you have to support your side? What evidence would you need in order to strengthen your viewpoint? What kinds of evidence will the other side use to attack your viewpoint? How much do your own personal experiences have to do with believing the side that you do?Write a paragraph supporting your sideWhat evidence do you have to support your side? What evidence would you need in order to strengthen your viewpoint? What kinds of evidence will the other side use to attack your viewpoint? How much do your own personal experiences have to do with believing the side that you do?Your paragraph should include:A strong claim statement that clearly restates the question and states your argument At least 1 piece of cited evidence from the documents to support your argumentExplanation of your evidence piece (how does it support your argument)A conclusion statement that restates your argument? ................
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