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Sigh... These articles need to stop. People don't seem to realize that there's a larger difference between the 1% and the 0.5% than the 1% and the 99% in Americ
by jchonphoenix 12y ago
Sigh... These articles need to stop. People don't seem to realize that there's a larger difference between the 1% and the 0.5% than the 1% and the 99% in America.
Also, nobody seems to understand the difference between wealth and earnings. 1% wealth isn't the same as 1% earnings and is a hell of a lot better. I forget the stat but a surprising number of people in the US like 25% hit 1% earnings at some point in their life due to some event.
- duncan_bayne 12y agoArticles like these will continue as long as envy can be used to fuel class warfare.
- zurn 12y agoYour point has some merit, the dramatic breakaway is really in the 0.1% or so, but that's only a problem with the title and not the article. It's not talking about the 1% in America. Eg in the first instance it's talking about "senior managers and chief executives from leading British businesses", later "Branko Milanovic tries to discover who was the richest person who has ever lived" etc. The only place with 1% is where they compare the income increase of the US top 1% vs the bottom fifth - yeah, there he should have used a smaller slice from the top (and the numbers would have been more dramatic). But maybe there aren't statistics available at that granularity, since he resorted to using the top 10% for the UK.
- bootload 12y ago"... nobody seems to understand the difference between wealth and earnings ..." Can you explain it for us ill educated folk?