Equality, a True Soul Food
Sunday, January 9th, 2011
January 1, 2011
Among rich countries, those that are more unequal appear to have more mental illness, infant mortality, obesity, high school dropouts, teenage births, homicides, and so on. They find the same thing is true among the 50 American states. More unequal states, like Mississippi and Louisiana, do poorly by these social measures. More equal states, like New Hampshire and Minnesota, do far better… “Inequality is divisive, and even small differences seem to make an important difference,” Professors Wilkinson and Pickett note. They suggest that it is not just the poor who benefit from the social cohesion that comes with equality, but the entire society.
Tags: crime prevention, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health, participation, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
The Children that Fortune Forgot
Sunday, December 19th, 2010
December 13, 2010
UNICEF released a report titled The Children Left Behind: A League Table of Inequality in Child Well-Being in the World’s Richest Countries that is summed… the United States sits right at the bottom of the OECD nations… The richest nation in the world (for now) is also the one with significant disparity between the top and the bottom. Above all else, the characterizations about the American poor being ‘lazy’ must come to an end. It has contributed to a growing misunderstanding of poverty that has global implications (ie. American aid and welfare policies).
Tags: child care, Health, ideology, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Winning the Class War
Sunday, December 5th, 2010
November 26, 2010
The ranks of the poor may be swelling and families forced out of their foreclosed homes may be enduring a nightmarish holiday season, but American companies have just experienced their most profitable quarter ever… U.S. firms earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter — the highest total since the government began keeping track more than six decades ago… Anyone who thinks there is something beneficial in this vast disconnect between the fortunes of the American elite and those of the struggling masses is just silly. It’s not even good for the elite.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Who Will Stand Up to the Superrich?
Sunday, November 21st, 2010
November 13, 2010
During the boom years of 2002 to 2007, that top 1 percent’s pretax income increased an extraordinary 10 percent every year… in that same period, the median income for non-elderly American households went down and the poverty rate rose… ever-widening income inequality was not an inevitable by-product of the modern megacorporation, or of globalization, or of the advent of the new tech-driven economy, or of a growing education gap… Inequality is instead the result of specific policies, including tax policies… for high-rolling donors in election after election.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
British Fashion Victims
Sunday, October 31st, 2010
October 21, 2010
… trying to balance budgets in the face of high unemployment and falling inflation is still a really bad idea… There have been widespread claims that deficit-cutting actually reduces unemployment because it reassures consumers and businesses; but multiple studies of historical record, including one by the International Monetary Fund, have shown that this claim has no basis in reality. No widespread fad ever passes, however, without leaving some fashion victims in its wake. In this case, the victims are the people of Britain…
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
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