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Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Thu Jan 1st, 2009 at 04:33:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
They are no better off on average now than 30 years ago, in France. And my guess is that it is the case in more places than the uk or France - it seems Japan hasn't done so well lately.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Thu Jan 1st, 2009 at 06:36:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I think it's only in the past 5 years that a slice of the very rich have taken off and left everybody else behind. Before that, the trend was still toward (slightly) shrinking inequality overall, and most deciles doing equally well.

I hve this in my "decline" article:



In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Fri Jan 2nd, 2009 at 04:38:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]
According to Piketty, the reversal of the trend from inequality decreasing to growing again started in the early eighties, in France... Although indeed, most of the increase happened in the last ten years (note that this graph's period starts ten years ago...)

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Fri Jan 2nd, 2009 at 04:55:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It starts 10 years ago AND shows increasing inequality.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi
by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Fri Jan 2nd, 2009 at 06:15:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]
We're partly talking about different things here, on one hand rising inequality and on the other stagnant absolute incomes.

On one hand you have the US were GDP has grown by X % over time Y, while median incomes have been stagnant. That's very bad and one can indeed question why the hell we should even care about economic growth at all in that situation.

On the other hand we have places like Western Europe where the elite might have increased their incomes by 100 % over time Y while median incomes have risen only 50 %.

While the first situation is horrible, the second is certainly not.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Fri Jan 2nd, 2009 at 06:19:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
In France and much of Western Europe, middle class income has stagnated for the past decade. With the rise of house prices and rents, it has even quite probably strongly decreased for those without wealth.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Fri Jan 2nd, 2009 at 07:02:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
And anyway, for many goods and service which are absolutely limited (housing in the most wanted places, education in the top schools, power when money can buy it), rising inequality is bad in itself. If the more wealthy get to control a larger share of private companies' stocks, that directly means a reduction in democracy.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Fri Jan 2nd, 2009 at 07:07:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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