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Voice in the Wilderness: Amenities in Poor Households - America vs. India

AMERICA POOR IS HIGH CLASS COMPARED TO OTHER NATIONS

charkeseharvey
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Food Stamp President

Food Stamp President

Why doesn’t someone just come out and call Newt Gingrich out? When Newt called President Obama the ‘food stamp’ President what he was really doing was slamming the President for having been ‘poor’! He was making an inside joke as to why Obama is not ‘fit’ to be President, in Newt’s mind (world), Obama is just not one of the ‘good ole’ boys’, he was not privy to an elite and preppy upbringing, he didn’t mingle and rub noses w/the ‘1%’ as a child. Newt really wanted to say that Obama was born on the wrong side of the tracks, but he knew that would be a little too racially charged so he toned it back a bit, the meaning, however, is still the same.

Saying that ‘more people than ever are on food stamps under Obama …’ was his out and he calculated that, Newt is Macovellian in that way. He knew that w/the ‘1%’ they would understand his lingo and snicker and w/the other ‘99%’ they would accept his follow-up definition, as he knew that he would need to clarify at some point. Let’s just call a spade a spade!

Newt is known for his dirty tricks, in the ‘90’s Newt was fined over $300k for ethics violations in the House while he was Speaker of the House, and remember that this was under a REPUBLICAN Congress! Newt has found that it is easy to retell his story if he waits a few years ~ the public at large seem to have a short memory and a shorter attention span ~ and simply changes the parts of his history that he does like, or at least the parts that he finds most hindering in his ongoing quest for power.
Newt is not using Reagan as an example that is a travesty to the integrity of Ronald Reagan. Newt is using Nixon as a model. Nixon lost to JFK in 1960 despite his (Nixon’s) dirty politics, and then came back several years later in 1974 to beat McGovern for the Presidency. In that 14 year span people seemed to forget the kind of person that Nixon was so when he played the ‘dirty politics’ card in 1974 it worked. That is Newt’s model ~ Newt, who left the House of Representatives in disgrace, much the same as Nixon left the White House in disgrace.Food Stamp President Why doesn’t someone just come out and call Newt Gingrich... more

politicalair
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White Folk On Welfare

I was watching the Daily Show with John Stewart the other night and he had a guest who... more

baghdadbythebay
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Income inequality in the Roman Empire:more equal than U.S?!

Income inequality in the Roman Empire

December 16, 2011 by Tim De Chant

Agrippina the Younger

Over the last 30 years, wealth in the United States has been steadily concentrating in the upper economic echelons. Whereas the top 1 percent used to control a little over 30 percent of the wealth, they now control 40 percent. It’s a trend that was for decades brushed under the rug but is now on the tops of minds and at the tips of tongues.

Since too much inequality can foment revolt and instability, the CIA regularly updates statistics on income distribution for countries around the world, including the U.S. Between 1997 and 2007, inequality in the U.S. grew by almost 10 percent, making it more unequal than Russia, infamous for its powerful oligarchs. The U.S. is not faring well historically, either. Even the Roman Empire, a society built on conquest and slave labor, had a more equitable income distribution.

To determine the size of the Roman economy and the distribution of income, historians Walter Schiedel and Steven Friesen pored over papyri ledgers, previous scholarly estimates, imperial edicts, and Biblical passages. Their target was the state of the economy when the empire was at its population zenith, around 150 C.E. Schiedel and Friesen estimate that the top 1 percent of Roman society controlled 16 percent of the wealth, less than half of what America’s top 1 percent control.

To arrive at that number, they broke down Roman society into its established and implicit classes. Deriving income for the majority of plebeians required estimating the amount of wheat they might have consumed. From there, they could backtrack to daily wages based on wheat costs (most plebs did not have much, if any, discretionary income). Next they estimated the incomes of the “respectable” and “middling” sectors by multiplying the wages of the bottom class by a coefficient derived from a review of the literature. The few “respectable” and “middling” Romans enjoyed comfortable, but not lavish, lifestyles.

Above the plebs were perched the elite Roman orders. These well-defined classes played important roles in politics and commerce. The ruling patricians sat at the top, though their numbers were likely too few to consider. Below them were the senators. Their numbers are well known—there were 600 in 150 C.E.—but estimating their wealth was difficult. Like most politicians today, they were wealthy—to become a senator, a man had to be worth at least 1 million sesterces (a Roman coin, abbreviated HS). In reality, most possessed even greater fortunes. Schiedel and Friesen estimate the average senator was worth over HS5 million and drew annual incomes of more than HS300,000.

After the senators came the equestrians. Originally the Roman army’s cavalry, they evolved into a commercial class after senators were banned from business deals in 218 B.C. An equestrian’s holdings were worth on average about HS600,000, and he earned an average of HS40,000 per year. The decuriones, or city councilmen, occupied the step below the equestrians. They earning about HS9,000 per year and held assets of around HS150,000. Other miscellaneous wealthy people drew incomes and held fortunes of about the same amount as the decuriones.

In total, Schiedel and Friesen figure the elite orders and other wealthy made up about 1.5 percent of the 70 million inhabitants the empire claimed at its peak. Together, they controlled around 20 percent of the wealth.

These numbers paint a picture of two Romes, one of respectable, if not fabulous, wealth and the other of meager wages, enough to survive day-to-day but not enough to prosper. The wealthy were also largely concentrated in the cities. It’s not unlike the U.S. today. Indeed, based on a widely used measure of income inequality, the Gini coefficient, imperial Rome was slightly more equal than the U.S.Income inequality in the Roman Empire December 16, 2011 by Tim De Chant... more