By Jim Heffernan
Finding truth is difficult. Contrasting messages swirl about continuously. Inspired by the book, “The Scout Mindset” by Julia Galef, I’ve volunteered to be a scout for the community. I am looking for truth. I have some qualifications,but I’m not infallible. If you think I’ve been decieved, please let me know. Maybe it takes more than one scout to ferret out the truth. The threats that face us can only be dealt with if we know the truth.
I recently learned that there is such a thing as a “Gini coefficient” used in economics to measure the relative economic equality of a country. It is named for a 20th century Italian economist, Corado Gini, who developed it A Gini coefficient of 1 indicates 1 person has all the money. A Gini coefficient of 0 would be the result if everyone had equal wealth and income.
The United States’ Gini index was .34 in 1979 and has risen to .42 today. That small shift of numbers is the result of shifting $79 Trillion dollars from bottom 90% of households to top 1% of households. Most European nations have indexes from .25 to .35. African and some South American countries are the only countries to have higher index number than the United States.
If wealth and income were equal (a Gini coefficient of 0) each household in the United States would have a net wealth of $800,000 and an annual income of $140,000.
These observations are just math and divorced from opinion. Accuracy of assessment rated as very high.
As always, discussion welcome at codger817@gmail.com