Thread: The U.S. should be a warning to other countries.

As in what road not to go down.
A very interesting read.
For some reason I can't cut and paste the content, maybe someone could do me a solid.

https://www.theguardian.com/business...ther-countries

Interview: Joseph Stiglitz: ‘America should be a warning to other countries’

Gareth Hutchens
In the lead-up to his Australian visit, the renowned economist warns of the triple threat of rising inequality, the undermining of democracy and climate change



It’s a stark message from a Nobel-prize winning economist.
“We were a very different country 40 years ago,” he says. “The downhill slide has been pretty fast. America, I think, should be an important warning to other countries not to take for granted their institutions. I worry that things in the United States could get much worse.”
Joseph Stiglitz is coming to Australia next week. The renowned economist and Columbia University professor has been awarded the 2018 Sydney peace prize for leading one of the defining public policy discussions of our age – the crisis caused by economic inequality.
Stiglitz is credited with pioneering the concept of the “1 per cent”, the idea that the upper 1% of Americans have accumulated so much political power and wealth in recent decades – through voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the corrupting influence of money – that the country’s economy has suffered, and its democracy has been undermined.
In 2011, barely two years into Barack Obama’s first presidential term, he warned the political upheavals then roiling countries including Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain could one day be visited upon the US, but in an American way. Later that year, the Occupy Wall Street protest emerged in Manhattan’s financial district.
His 2012 bestselling book The Price of Inequality explained in detail how America had been growing apart, at an increasingly rapid rate. He argued forcefully that the severe inequality in the US was a choice of the country’s leaders: a consequence of their policies, laws and regulations.

Most Americans want a higher minimum wage, they want gun control, they want access to healthcare … yet our democracy can’t deliver it
Joseph Stiglitz
This month he plotted in Scientific American how inequality had worsened so much over the last 40 years that US democracy was imperilled.
“Whereas the income share of the top 0.1% has more than quadrupled and that of the top 1% has almost doubled, that of the bottom 90% has declined,” he wrote.
“Wages at the bottom, adjusted for inflation, are about the same as they were some 60 years ago. Wealth is even less equally distributed, with just three Americans having as much as the bottom 50%.”
“As more of our citizens come to understand why the fruits of economic progress have been so unequally shared, there is a real danger that they will become open to a demagogue blaming the country’s problems on others and making false promises of rectifying ‘a rigged system’.
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“We are already experiencing a foretaste of what might happen. It could get much worse.”
Stiglitz tells Guardian Australia, in the lead-up to his trip to Australia, that this country has a lot to learn from America.

Joseph Stiglitz on artificial intelligence: 'We’re going towards a more divided society'

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“One of the reasons I wrote [The Price of Inequality] is almost as a warning to other countries,” he says.
“Some of the forces attacking what I would call the social order … those who are shortsighted and in the 1%, know that what they want is contrary to what would evolve in a functioning democracy.
“Most Americans want a higher minimum wage, they want gun control, they want access to healthcare, they want stronger financial regulation – the polling on some of these issues is, you know, 75% or more – and yet our democracy can’t deliver it.
“Those on the other side have to undermine democracy if they’re going to thwart the will of such a large majority, so they undermine it by disenfranchisement and disempowerment.”
Stiglitz says the vision of policymakers in the aftermath of the second world war was to draw together a community that had fought together, to help society become more equal. In the 1960s that was reinforced with demands for racial and social and gender justice, to break down further the forces that had long-divided society.
“It was a continuation if you looked at it in a grand historical [perspective] where we’d gotten rid of feudalism and hereditary privilege and we were moving step by step to a greater system of social justice,” he says. “That was our vision, with the civil rights movement.”

The magnitude of the dysfunction [on climate change] is unbelievable
Joseph Stiglitz
But the election of Donald Trump as president, and a Republican push to further undermine economic equality, mean the old social contract is being further undermined.
“Now we have Trump – a misogynist, a racist, a bigot – as president and openly espousing these things, and we have the majority of the Republican party voting for a tax bill that increases inequality and leads more people to have no insurance coverage. It’s further undermining the social contract and [the old] vision.”

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Stiglitz says he plans to talk about all of these things in Australia, including the problem of climate change – which he says presents the strongest critique of the capitalist system.
“It reminds one of Jared Diamond’s story of collapse on Easter Island where they cut down the last tree and there they were, unable to paddle to any other island and they’d destroyed their future,” he says.
“We’re doing the same. The magnitude of the dysfunction is unbelievable. And what’s remarkable about it is, some of the work I’ve done has shown the cost to our society of dealing with this is minuscule, at most 2% of GDP, whereas the cost of not dealing with it could be horrendous.”
He says any view of a well-managed society would be “why not deal with the threat of climate change?”
“Particularly because the way you’d do it would actually stimulate the economy.”
Prof Joseph Stiglitz will be in Australia to receive the Sydney peace prize. He will be awarded the prize at the City of Sydney peace prize lecture on 15 November, and speak at the National Press Club in Canberra on 14 November and at the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne on 19 November
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Stiglitz tells Guardian Australia, in the lead-up to his trip to Australia, that this country has a lot to learn from America.

“One of the reasons I wrote [The Price of Inequality] is almost as a warning to other countries,” he says.

“Some of the forces attacking what I would call the social order … those who are shortsighted and in the 1%, know that what they want is contrary to what would evolve in a functioning democracy.

“Most Americans want a higher minimum wage, they want gun control, they want access to healthcare, they want stronger financial regulation – the polling on some of these issues is, you know, 75% or more – and yet our democracy can’t deliver it.

“Those on the other side have to undermine democracy if they’re going to thwart the will of such a large majority, so they undermine it by disenfranchisement and disempowerment.”

It's the same in Thailand.
The problem is, wealth is exponential (if weilded wisely) and not many wealthy people are truly altruistic. Charitable, maybe, but forgoing the third Lear jet forever for the philosophical sake of the nation is not going to happen. One reason is that one rich guy doesn't want the other rich guys getting ahead, so even if he was genuinely philanthropic, he wouldn't surrender his power unless all the others do too.
Buffet and Gates (and others?) both agreed to devote xx% of their wealth to charity. They can't increase "xx%" until all the top 1% agree to do so too, otherwise the ones that don't will get the edge on the ones that do.

Originally Posted by Maanaam

It's the same in Thailand.
The problem is, wealth is exponential (if weilded wisely) and not many wealthy people are truly altruistic. Charitable, maybe, but forgoing the third Lear jet forever for the philosophical sake of the nation is not going to happen. One reason is that one rich guy doesn't want the other rich guys getting ahead, so even if he was genuinely philanthropic, he wouldn't surrender his power unless all the others do too.
Buffet and Gates (and others?) both agreed to devote xx% of their wealth to charity. They can't increase "xx%" until all the top 1% agree to do so too, otherwise the ones that don't will get the edge on the ones that do.

Sorry, but who is going to get the "edge" on Bill Gates or Warren Buffet?

What on earth are you talking about?

Originally Posted by Maanaam

They can't increase "xx%" until all the top 1% agree to do so too, otherwise the ones that don't will get the edge on the ones that do.

Edge ? What edge ? Gates and Buffet could give away 99 % of their toys and still be wildly rich.
As far as I can tell the rich hold a greater percentage of the world's wealth every year and the only reason that the guillotine makers aren't doing overtime is that the peasantry isn't too cold or hungry. Yet.

Rich people (and people) are strange. I heard a story about a rich woman in Phuket who drops in to the local Mercedes shop every 3 months to get a new one.
The reason - the red license plates on a new car get changed after 3 months and if her friends saw her in a car with ordinary plates they'd think she was going downhill and - yes, you guessed it - she'd lose face.
She apparently started her career with a broom (sweeping, not riding) so why should she care about what anybody else thinks ?
But she does ....

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Sorry, but who is going to get the "edge" on Bill Gates or Warren Buffet?

What on earth are you talking about?

Comprehension difficulties? Have another read Harry and try to understand the words "until", "can't increase xx%", and "otherwise", and what they imply wrt the others in the 1% club. Also try to understand that "xx" is vague and could mean a very significant percentage, as is implied with the general theme of the OP.
You're as unimaginative and as anal as Cyrille.

Originally Posted by Mid Terms

Chinese

There you go, yep, them too.

Originally Posted by Maanaam

Comprehension difficulties? Have another read Harry and try to understand the words "until", "can't increase xx%", and "otherwise", and what they imply wrt the others in the 1% club. Also try to understand that "xx" is vague and could mean a very significant percentage, as is implied with the general theme of the OP.
You're as unimaginative and as anal as Cyrille.

Sorry, you illiterate tool. You said something about "one rich guy doesn't want the other rich guy getting ahead", whatever the fuck that means, and then some crap about Gates and Buffet "can't increase until the other 1% do".

I tried to give you a chance to explain yourself, but since you didn't, I'll have to assume it was your usual, unintelligible shite and I was right to assume that you haven't got a fucking clue what you're on about.

Handbags at two paces gentlemen.

He says any view of a well-managed society would be “why not deal with the threat of climate change?”

Fucking Commie

...a large number of strategic helicopter accidents would be helpful to wealth distribution...

Originally Posted by tomcat

...a large number of strategic helicopter accidents would be helpful to wealth distribution...

Only if there is (enforced) inheritance tax. Otherwise it's just wealth distribution from parent to child innit.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Otherwise it's just wealth distribution from parent to child innit.

...not necessarily...

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

unintelligible shite

Unintelligible to you.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

I was right to assume that you haven't got a fucking clue what you're on about

You would think that, Infallible Harry.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

You said something about

..and I said "read again"...which you didn't, or if you did, still didn't comprehend.

I'll say it again, Harry,...read again. This time try hard to think outside your little box.
If you still can't get it, I'll try to write in expressions that don't require a bit of forward thinking or leaps of logic beyond your capacity.

It's been much too late for some time...

I get exactly what Manny is saying. The elites measure themselves against each other. Unless there is a competition in philanthropy, they only end up losing face.
Its not easy to understand because, in most cases, their wealth is immeasurable.

Originally Posted by HuangLao

It's been much too late for some time...

Sorry, the soothsayers position was filled about two centuries ago.

Originally Posted by Switch

I get exactly what Manny is saying. The elites measure themselves against each other. Unless there is a competition in philanthropy, they only end up losing face.
Its not easy to understand because, in most cases, their wealth is immeasurable.

Yeah.

It still makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

Greedy rich people hang on to what they've got and always want more. It has fuck all to do with anyone else.

Warren Buffet has always been a philanthropist. Most of his money is going to go to Bill and Melinda Gates to spend.

Doesn't sound much like competition to me.

Fucktard posts another youtube video.

Film at 11.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Only if there is (enforced) inheritance tax. Otherwise it's just wealth distribution from parent to child innit.

What's the gig on inheritance tax? My kids and those of almost everyone I know in the UK will probably pay more inheritance tax than any of their counterparts on the Forbes List.

What I got from maanaams' post I think is true of all levels of society. A working class Australian does not measure himself against the poor in Ethiopia but against others of his own financial level. The rich are just the same as they dont measure their wealth against the working class but other of similar wealth. I think that was Manaams' point "Arry. If not he will trot along and add a correction in due course.

Originally Posted by Hugh Cow

What I got from maanaams' post I think is true of all levels of society. A working class Australian does not measure himself against the poor in Ethiopia but against others of his own financial level. The rich are just the same as they dont measure their wealth against the working class but other of similar wealth. I think that was Manaams' point "Arry. If not he will trot along and add a correction in due course.

I'm pretty sure Bill Gates doesn't sit there looking at how much Warren Buffet has over his morning cornflakes.

Manaam is probably a curtain twitcher peering in envy at his next door neighbours new Hilux.