Who to Blame for the Financial Crisis

Who to Blame for the Financial Crisis

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Inequality In U.S. Is Scarily High and Rising

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In June 2013, President Obama acknowledged that inequality is on the rise "even though the economy is growing." That growth hasn't helped many people who lost mid-wage jobs during the recession. Half of the U.S. population is now considered poor or low-income, and income has been redistributed from the middle class to the very rich faster under Obama than under George W. Bush. Income inequality in the U.S. is much worse than it is in other industrialized countries, where it is also an alarming problem, according to a new report from the International Labour Organization. The gap is only getting wider as the median wage continues to fall. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/inequality-us-_n_3421381.html
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Americans actually live in Russia, although they think they live in Sweden. And they would like to live on a kibbutz.

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In "The Lottery Mentality," a 2011 editorial in The New York Times , Chrystia Freeland explains that "Americans are mistaken about income inequality because of national self-confidence and the lottery effect." http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/03/21/rising-wealth-inequality-should-we-care/the-lottery-mentality Americans actually live in Russia, although they think they live in Sweden. And they would like to live on a kibbutz. This isn’t the set-up for some sort of politically incorrect Catskills stand-up joke circa 1960. It is the takeaway from a remarkable study by Michael Norton and Dan Ariely on how Americans think about income inequality. The right likes to argue that income inequality as an issue doesn’t win elections because Americans don’t begrudge the rich so much as they want to join them. The Norton and Ariely study suggests otherwise. Given a choice, the authors find, Americans would prefer to live in a society more equal than even highly egalitar...
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Buffett warns Obama U.S. economy only halfway back

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