When you can turn on the television and watch riots overseas on a live feed, it’s a little freaky. Some of what is going on is clearly political, but often politics have their roots in money and economics. One of the things that Americans constantly worry about in this country is the distribution of wealth-why do the rich always seem to get richer, and what happened to the middle class? Will economic inequality eventually result in social upheaval?
This article from the New York Times is a reminder of how good we have it. It shows the comparative purchasing power distributions in the U.S., India, China, and Brazil. In each country, there are very wealthy people. In each country, there are poor people. But the “poor” people in the U.S. are about as poor as the richest 10% of people in India! An amazing visual:
Source: New York Times/Branko Milanovic
