INEQUALITY 101: THE PICKET FENCE AND THE STAIRCASE - by John Cassidy
Found via The Big Picture.
When a group of millionaires appear onstage with a Democratic President to call for higher taxes on people like them, you know one of two things: either the President is in Hollywood, or something interesting is happening in the country at large. In this case, it’s the latter. After three decades in which rising inequality was largely ignored, it has finally emerged as a serious political issue—or, at least, President Obama is trying to turn it into one.
I’ll have more to say later about the “Buffett Rule” that Obama has proposed, which would force people who make upwards of a million dollars a year to pay at least thirty per cent of their income to the federal government. But before getting into a policy discussion, I thought it might be useful to provide a reminder, with the aid of some charts, about the basic facts underlying the debate.
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Related previous posts:
FiveBooks Interview: Daron Acemoglu on Inequality
Fault Lines: The Top 1%
TED Talk - Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies
Capital versus Talent: Discussion between Malcolm Gladwell and Roger Martin
How Inequality Fueled the Crisis - By Raghuram Rajan
Amy Chua: World on Fire
