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Sorry, no matter how you put it, that doesn't look too good for the US.

Relative poverty is a wonderful thing. It allows you to say that a man who own his own home, his own car, a computer, 60" TV, stereo, etc is "poor" if he lives in Eagle Pass TX, but "rich" if he lives three miles farther west in Piedras Negras.

Thanks, but I prefer the old-fashioned notion of absolute poverty.

I barely start discussions on ./ because it’s so obviously pointless, but I have to comment on this comment. Comparing different countries in terms of absolute poverty has been popular in the US to make things look better than they are but is flawed methodology for basically a bazillion of reasons: exchange rates, different prices for different goods, different demands and needs, etc. To give you an example, if you can't afford a car in India, nobody gives a shit, but if you can't afford a car in the US you might not even be able to work unless you live in a city like NY. That put aside, I just can’t imagine any way to spin the fact that relative poverty has been continually increasing in the US as good news.

Yes, absolute poverty has declined in the US:

Absolute Poverty US

While it doesn’t look so bad in terms of absolute poverty in international comparisons, the US is still far worse off than the majority of European countries, except for south-European countries like Portugal and Spain. You can dig up the statistics on your own.

There are many other measures of poverty, like e.g. the following one that doesn’t look too good for the US either:

Poverty Index

Or, how about food security in the US:

Hunger in US

Sadly most people in the US are irrational when it comes to data like this, they just cherry-pick the statistics they like to hear. Apparently people in the US get hammered the message that the US is the greatest and richest country into their brain from early childhood on.

Enough said.

You are missing the entire point of taxes. Taxes are supposed to (help) balance the economic equation. Taxes are supposed to (help) keep the relative distribution of wealth stable across the long term. Of course, it is not working (source.) The problem is that we tax income, not wealth. Look at Warren Buffet. He personally earns relatively little traditional income, but his general assets grow at a significant rate. His assets are not taxed very much (unless he sells them, then he will pay 15% as capitol gains). So the longer he keeps his assets, the wealthier he becomes relative to anyone whose wealth is primarily determined by their income (the lower 80% of Americans). Even if he sells his assets, he will pay a lower tax rate than most middle class Americans pay.

Currently, the top 5% of Americans own 58.9% of the wealth (versus ~55% in 1983). And the top 20% own 84.7% (versus ~81% in 1983). If we follow these trends into the future, eventually the top 1% or so will own 99% of the wealth. It is not a sustainable system, we either deal with it now, or sometime in the future when the entire system collapses.

In regards to a citation for real wages declining, here is some data.

>The point is, the middle class owns the vast majority of American capital. All savings is investment. This is a trivial accounting identity.

Nope. You are entirely wrong. The rich have controlled most of the wealth in the US for a very long time.

According to this link:

"The wealthiest 1 percent of families owns roughly 34.3% of the nation's net worth, the top 10% of families owns over 71%, and the bottom 40% of the population owns way less than 1%."

What you and the other numbnut are referring to is the infinitesimal percentage of people who actually know how to make large amounts of money, and use it wisely.

What little information we have on the subject of wealth distribution states that infinitesimal percentage (5%) owns over 71% of all wealth in the country. Care to revise your statement, sir?

The top 1% pay most of the taxes.

Umm, they pay about one third of the taxes, which makes sense in a flat tax kind of way because the top 1% own one third of the assets in the US. Now while that seems fair enough, until you look at the distribution of investment assets (that is assets that are actually earning money and are not necessary for the owner's day to day life) now the richest 1% hold 40% of the investment assets.

Robert Reich has some words on this as well.

I found this: http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/jmac/rs/halftw.ht m

Layne

Google for distribution of wealth and you'll get tons of links, such as this one, which includes such nifty statistics for the US as:

• The wealthiest 5% of households hold nearly 60% of all the wealth.
• Wealth disparity has increased over the last 20 years.
• The bottom 60% of households hold 4.2% of the wealth despite earning 26.8% of the income.

Careening back on topic... for what it's worth, I tend to telecommute in the morning and show up after lunch. I then drive home after the dinner rush--around 7PM. That usually works out pretty well.

In india actually dried cow dung is used directly as a fuel in the form of "cow cakes" and is in fact a "traditional fuel"

http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/curriculum/socialstd/gra de7/india/Woman_cooking.html

  "Refining" of cow dung has been going on for a long time for even more efficiency is used all the time

Check out this article from 1995 that converts cow dung to methane which is used in power plants and the left over slurry is used a fertilizer..

http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/C ourses/so191/SouthAsReadings/IndiaEnergySuccess.ht ml

After calling around, I found out the fastest bandwidth package available is half the speed of my previous package.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the optics aren't going to get you any additional speed to the internet if the fastest connection you can find to uplink it is still slow.

Reminds me of my old school that touted FIBER TO THE DESKTOP!!! - doesn't make much sense when all you have is a T1 and 10k nodes on a single subnet.

This kind of quickie-mart reduction of economic reasoning is why the Average American in trouble.

Autos/livery business.
The reasonable livery worker said, "This automobile industry uses like skills, so I'll try to get a job there."
In 2005, can the IBM worker move in a similar way? Not likely because he's competing with similar workers who are being paid 1/5 less.

Outsourcing Creates New Opportunities.
Economic thought says the most likely answer is the place that maximizes profit. And that place is NOT the U.S. because our wages and living standards are so high relative to other places.

Progress
Ah, the cult of progress:
What goods/services will Americans sell to other global that they can't get anywhere else? They can get your precious Flash programming lots of other places for a lot less. Then what will you do? Likely sponge off your wealthy parents until you find something else you can feel superior in.

Sovereignty & Free Markets
The U.S. is an economic sovereignty with the top-10% of its citizens owning 72% of everything. That's using data from 1983! They got it using a heavily modified set of free market tools. http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/C ourses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm

Live and Learn a little about America before you put your foot in your mouth again.

Why people pay what they do for CD's nowadays just amazes me - its just NOT worth $15 bucks a CD!

Agreed. Very little of the music that actually retails for that much I do find palatable, let alone actually something worth paying for. I could probably count the must-have artists that retail for that much (for me anyway) on a single hand. The rest is all classical, jazz, punk, and older stuff... which usually doesn't go for more than $8 a CD. And I listen to the radio (both online and in my car, mostly NPR and college radio in the latter).

I just don't have a taste for the mainstream crap. It costs too much, and, quite frankly, the quality actually tends to be lower. It *is* a bit like FOSS vs. commercial software.

The wealth distribution in this country sucks. It makes the case all the more complicated, since it highlights the enormous number of people who simply don't have $15 to shell out for a CD or a DVD, but are still bombarded constantly with ads that are designed to make them want them badly. Personally, I avoid TV and most mass media altogether, so I'm largely unaffected by this. As a result, about all I use P2P for is free software (like snagging Slackware 10.1 when it came out a bit ago), TV shows (at least the ones which haven't come out on DVD), and pr0n. When something comes out on DVD, what I saved on cable/satellite bills allows me to buy the DVD.

I guess my point is that you can violate the law all you want if you think it's immoral, but you still risk paying the legal price. I smoke pot, and I risk that if a cop finds out that I have this plant on my person, I will go to jail or incur a fine. I don't think it's right, but I do have choices: move somewhere it's legal, or quit. Filesharing is a bit like that: move somewhere (like Canada) it's legal, quit, or risk getting caught. In the meantime, do what you can to get the laws changed, but don't expect the courts to decide in your favor when you've broken the law as it stands. And there are steps you can take to avoid even wanting to consume those commerical works in the first place. Avoid TV and especially commercials; this will cultivate your taste to things that are actually pleasant, rather than the things that trigger quick, strong neurochemical responses that say, "BUY! BUY! BUY!"

http://www.hobotraveler.com/photoecotourismmethane gas01.shtml
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/C ourses/so191/SouthAsReadings/IndiaEnergySuccess.ht ml

People in the top 2% of wealth pay over 90% of taxes.

uh, no.

taxes vs. income (see "Share of Income vs. Share of Taxes")

According to the CBO, the top 1% paid 23% of all federal taxes. However, they also made 16% of the nations income, and more interestingly, posessed 39% of the nation's wealth (see here, or just google "us wealth distribution")

Pay 23% of all taxes, and get 39% of the wealth? Sounds like a good deal to me.

Google answer summary of wealth distribution in the US

and a nice Pie chart distribution of wealth