Inequality & social mobility

This might be America’s greatest problem, breaking the keystone of America’s foundations and the glue of our social cohesion.

Contents

1. About our falling social mobility
2. About wealth inequality
3. About income inequality
4. About corporations building an unequal world
5. About the politics of inequality
6. Life in unequal post-America
7. Will the new industrial revolution boost inequality?
8. About solutions

(1)  About our falling social mobility

1. America, the land of limited opportunity. We must open our eyes to the truth.
2. Growing inequality powers the rise of New America.

(2)  About wealth inequality

1. A great, brief analysis of the problem with America’s society – a model to follow when looking at other problems.
2. Americans love Tolkien’s Middle Earth. It’s just like home!

(3)  About income inequality

1. A sad picture of America, important for us to understand, 3 November 2008 — About social mobility
2. Inequality in the USA, 7 January 2009
3. The latest figures on income inequality in the USA, 9 October 2009
4. An opportunity to look in the mirror, to more clearly see America, 10 November 2009
5. Graph of the decade, a hidden fracture in the American political regime, 7 March 2010
6. Modern America seen in pictures. Graphs, not photos. Facts, not impressions., 13 June 2010
7. News You Can Use to understand the New America, 14 March 2012 — Articles about rising inequality
8. Jared Bernstein examines the economic impact of raising taxes on high-income households, 30 April 2012
9. How clearly do we see the rising inequality in America? How do we feel about it? Much depends on these answers., 27 September 2012
10. Ugly truths about income inequality in America, which no politician dares to say, 2 October 2012
11. The coming big inequality. Was Marx just early?, 27 November 2012
12. Glimpses of the New America being born now, 18 June 2013
13. Back to the future in New America: our new class structure, 27 November 2013
14. The state of the American middle class: are we thriving or sinking?, 15 January 2014
15. Warning: the income gap between races is widening in America.

(4)  About corporations building an unequal world

1. The new American economy: concentrating business power to suit an unequal society, 27 April 2012
2. For Thanksgiving, Walmart shows us the New America, 19 November 2013
3. Nike swooshs us into a future of fewer jobs, low pay, 10 March 2014

(5)  About the politics of inequality

1. America’s elites reluctantly impose a client-patron system, 5 November 2008
2. A pity party for America’s rich and powerful, 8 September 2010
3. Should we despair, giving up on America?, 5 May 2012
4. Tom Perkins tells us about the 1%’s vision of a New America, 18 February 2014
5. How the 1% runs America. Runs us. The answer points to 2 futures for us., 8 May 2014
6. The 1% won a counter-revolution while we played. We forgot that we are the crew of America, not passengers., 28 April 2014
7. See America’s income equality grow during 1979-2011, a driver of Campaign 2016.
8. Taxes: one of the bright lines distinguishing Trump from Clinton.

(6)  Life in unequal post-America

1. A modern conservative dresses up Mr. Potter to suit our libertarian fashions.
2. Another view of New America: inequality, low social mobility, rising heroin use. Fun, but not for all.
3. For Thanksgiving, Walmart shows us the New America,
4. Consequences of growing inequality in wealth, income, and power.
5. Americans love Tolkien’s Middle Earth. It’s just like home!
6. Why Elizabeth Bennet could not marry Mr. Darcy. Nor could your daughter.
7. Learning not to trust each other in America, and not to trust America.
8. Our future will be Jupiter Ascending, unless we make it Star Trek.
9. Complaints about air travel are the cries of a dying middle class.
10. When marriage disappears: rising inequality as the threat to the family.
11. See America’s income inequality grow during 1979-2011, a driver of Campaign 2016.
12. An anthropologist looks at America’s growing proletariat.

(7)  Will the new industrial revolution boost inequality?

1. The coming big inequality. Was Marx just early?
2. Well-meant minimum wage increases will accelerate automation.
3. The battle of institutions vs. technology = rising wage inequality.
4. Matthew Yglesias tells us not to worry about the new industrial revolution.

(8) About solutions

1. Education, the glittering but fake solution.
2. Steps to make the tech revolution boost America, not just the 1%.
3. Well-meant minimum wage increases will accelerate automation.
4. A guaranteed minimum income: faux solution for the new industrial revolution.
5. Why a guaranteed minimum income will not defend us from the coming automation wave.

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