"It's class warfare and my class is winning." Warren Buffett

The value of any commodity, ... to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. (Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations Book 1, chapter V.)

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works....(Barack Obama)


Friday, July 18, 2008

Inequality Widens in the United States

Inequality in the United States is widening to levels resembling a yawning abyss:

The United States of America is becoming less united by the day. A 30-year gap now exists in the average life expectancy between Mississippi, in the Deep South, and Connecticut, in prosperous New England. Huge disparities have also opened up in income, health and education depending on where people live in the US, according to a report published yesterday.

The American Human Development Index has applied to the US an aid agency approach to measuring well-being - more familiar to observers of the Third World - with shocking results.
The facts are:
  • The US ranks 42nd in global life expectancy
  • It ranks 34th in survival of infants to age.
  • Suicide and murder are among the top 15 causes of death
  • The US constitutes 5 per cent of the global population, yet it accounts for 24 per cent of the world’s prisoners.
  • In parts of Texas, the percentage of adults who pass through high school has not improved since the 1970s.
  • Asian-American males have the best quality of life and black Americans the lowest, with a staggering 50-year life expectancy gap between the two groups.
  • “Some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education and standard of living,” said Sarah Burd-Sharps co-author of the report.
  • Despite the fact that the US spends roughly $5.2bn (£2.6bn) every day on health care, more per capita than any other nation in the world, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of every western European and Nordic country, bar Denmark..
Our relatively largely unregulated free enterprise system is identified as the culprit:
Despite an almost cult-like devotion to the belief that unfettered free enterprise is the best way to lift Americans out of poverty, the report points to a rigged system that does little to lessen inequalities....

Although the US is one of the most powerful and rich nations in the world, the study concludes it is “woefully behind when it comes to providing opportunity and choices to all Americans to build a better life”.
More startling facts about inequality in the US will appear on Delaware Watch soon.
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Posted by Delaware Watch at Friday, July 18, 2008

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