<p>Vlad, what is the headline of your chart?</p>
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<p>“Income gains widely shared in early postwar decades - not not since then” It’s pointing out that as a fraction of their previous incomes, the population broadly increased their incomes inline with each other in those early decades, and then a divergence occurred around 1980. This is irrelevant to my point. I think I’ve shown what I can to defend my point. </p>
<p>Getting back to the original point I was responding to, I don’t see how, based on that chart that shows that the poor are equally as well off as they were a generation ago and everyone else is better off, that we can say we’re descending down into some caste system. If we were, people would be poorer now than they were a generation ago. </p>
<p>yes. Well, you’ve also just illustrated ours. </p>
<p>good luck to you Vlad. I can see you are thinking things through. </p>
<p>Interesting thread. I must say that people who envy the poor are … strange. </p>
<p>Vlad, dude, you are missing the point. Let’s say I gave you a graph which shows that since the stone ages, income and standard of living of 99th percentile earner has remained the same, while that of the top percentile is at contemporary rich levels. What would you conclude from that? The 99% are doing fine? </p>
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<p>No, I would conclude that people are no worse off than they were in the stone ages. If someone were to say that we were worse off than in the stone ages under that scenario, I would refute that claim. </p>
<p>My original response was to a post that stated we were descending into some caste system. I am refuting that claim, there’s been no descent. I’m not saying that we can’t improve any from here, just that we’re better off than a generation ago. </p>
<p>@Vladenschlutte. Since you are young, I will not say I’m getting a headache. </p>
<p><a href=“America's economic mobility myth”>http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/09/news/economy/america-economic-mobility/</a></p>
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<p>“Busdriver11, were the protesters jealous, portrayed that way, or is this your take?”</p>
<p>That’s what I took from the news. I watched some reporting on it, but obviously did not participate. Not all of course, but for the most part it seemed like they really didn’t know what they wanted, and many people were just there for the party. But yeah, property destruction, harassing people, doing drugs, violence, trashing the areas they were in, obstructing people from doing business, even my kids were rolling their eyes about the idiocy. When your main theme is that you want more money to be taken from some people and given to others, and that corporations are evil, it seems pretty obvious that it was about class warfare. Definitely not a positive message.</p>
<p>Started by Canadians who abhor consumerism, I think some people would like to attribute a higher message to what the movement actually ended up being.</p>
<p>Anyways, time to go to sleep so I can get up and earn money, and be part of the consumer class. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/economic-mobility-hasnt-changed-in-a-half-century-in-america-economists-declare/2014/01/22/e845db4a-83a2-11e3-8099-9181471f7aaf_story.html”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/economic-mobility-hasnt-changed-in-a-half-century-in-america-economists-declare/2014/01/22/e845db4a-83a2-11e3-8099-9181471f7aaf_story.html</a></p>
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<p>As I said, Caste System.</p>
<p>Vlad, you need a little more delineage in your numbers. A breakdown of the top .01, .1 and 1 percent groups would be nice.</p>
<p>There are relative numbers and absolute numbers. We used to have a rising tide lifts all boats economy. Not so much anymore.</p>
<p>Let’s see how the top groups are doing. </p>
<p>Vlad, looking at your last chart…all the income groups have gone nowhere or down since 1997. That is 17 years. </p>
<p>That’s good?</p>
<p>So Vlad, if 99 pct stayed at Stone Age levels and 1% at $500k lifestyle levels or more, you wouldn’t say that the country has descended into a caste system?</p>
<p>I would say it is doing worse than that under a caste system.</p>
<p>Poetgrl, the link did not work in post 927. </p>
<p>I fixed it. </p>
<p>Poetgrl, thanks. I am a little surprised about the mobility. Have to think about it. :)</p>
<p>It’s probably best not to think about this stuff at all. But, it explains a lot, I think. </p>
<p>It’s really not that surprising. Mobility requires equal access to skill development opportunities. The poor in USA have low performing schools on average, and the middle class are not that far off either. Income inequality begets income inequality. As Tom Friedman writes over and over again, it’s a knowledge economy these days, eh? </p>
<p>Frankly my hat is off to any kid who can survive poor K-12 schooling and be a competitor at top schools. They deserve a full ride.</p>
<p>More links on economic mobility:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/”>http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/</a>
<a href=“In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters - The New York Times”>In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters - The New York Times;
<p>The map shows a fairly wide range in terms of the chance of someone born into the poorest fifth reaching the top fifth. Parts of the mountain and plains west (e.g. North Dakota, perhaps due to the shale oil boom) are among the places where the chance is over 20%, perhaps due to a hot local economy. On the other hand, some parts of the midwest (e.g. Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, which have been facing economic decline), and some parts of the south (e.g. Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina) have lower economic mobility for those born into the bottom fifth.</p>
<p>One of the figures in the latter article shows the percentage of bottom fifth and top fifth born people reaching the top 20%. Even one of the more “egalitarian” cities, Los Angeles, had a 19% disparity (10% of the bottom fifth versus 29% of the top fifth born made it to the top fifth). One of the least “egalitarian” cities, Baltimore, had a 31% disparity (6% of the bottom fifth versus 37% of the top fifth born made it to the top fifth).</p>
<p>Of course, the fact that some people born into the bottom fifth made it to the top fifth means that there is not a rigid caste system. But equality of opportunity in the US is much lower than what most people probably believe it to be.</p>
<p>yes. i think that’s accurate, UCB.</p>
<p>however, as I said earlier, the rising income inequality in the US is solidifying this situation.</p>
<p>I’m not really sure we even know the outcome of this current round of wealth consolidation, but we haven’t seen income inequality in the US like this since before the depression. </p>
<p>I’m not even honestly sure what that means, except with the numbers for the current college graduates, including debt, I can’t extrapolate that things are getting BETTER. Of course, I’m not an expert and I could be wrong. </p>
<p>I’m not really sure we even know the outcome of this current round of wealth consolidation, but we haven’t seen income inequality in the US like this since before the depression.</p>
<p>How did that resolve? What happens when we look at historical models beyond the US and throughout history? I decided a few weeks back there’s no point in worrying and just to trust in our kids to fix it for themselves. Alternatively I compare myself to that Roman watching from his boat as Vesuvius destroyed the world. Dstark has been making a valiant effort to explain the situation for more than six years here on this board. He’s a giver. 
However, the conversation doesn’t seem to change much. People believe what they believe. I understand how it’s possible to impact beliefs one on one, but not about the really big ideas. I can try to find the positive in being alive in interesting times.</p>
<p>Some of that may be inevitable. If you look at jobs, most “middle” class jobs require more education these days than in old days. You can’t just drop out of high school and work in auto industry earning a middle class wage. Those jobs are not widely available limiting the number of “middle” class. If those jobs are done by robots, you need to learn how to run robots. If you catch up with education, you have a chance to move up. There are more “upper middle” class jobs than middle class job. That would result in bifurcation. </p>
<p>I don’t want to get all dystopian, but maybe there is a limit to how many people can thrive in a country or on a planet. </p>