INCOME INEQUALITY   -- February 27, 2015
Woman Inequality          

Pre-Meeting Notes.

	The subject is not new.    Greek-Roman historian Plutarch: "An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics."
		define your audience, who is a citizen to be protected?

	Income shift to Brains not Brawn	
	top 90% +   have seen increases in wealth of 30%+		
	bottom 50%  have seen decrease in wealth of -10%		illegals and dropouts?

   According to The Earth Institute, life satisfaction in the US has been declining over the last several decades, which has been attributed to soaring inequality, lack of social trust and loss of faith in government.
    	Longer life expectancies. Greater accumulations at high end.  Poor, dumb die earlier.
	1970 had equal family structure.  Today, high school grads are much less likely to get married and be active in their communities, and much more likely to smoke, be obese, get divorced, or have "a child out of wedlock." 
		 The	USA is going to hell.
	40% of children who are born out of wedlock?  40% of all or 40% of the bastards?
	American education levels have slowed compared to other industrialized nations.  
	Education cost has risen vs. some countries provide free higher education for their future.
	Welfare spending may entice the poor away from finding remunerative work and toward dependency on the state.  !!!
		Early adopters of Robot taking all jobs.
	Min wage:  Families with income more than 6 times the poverty threshold would see their incomes fall (due in part to their business profits declining with higher employee costs).  
	While families with incomes below that threshold would rise.  What happens to starter jobs? 
	CEO pay at the largest 350 U.S. companies was 1965 =  20 times average worker 
                                                                                      1989 =  58 times 
                                                                                      2012 = 273 times 
	Value of a Steve Jobs or Henry Ford is inestimable. 
		But I suspect they would have done it without the big bucks.
	Poor carry larger debt trying for higher live-style; , resulting in less disposable income, no savings.
	Top 400 people have worth of $5 B   vs.  bottom 50% average $11 K
	The top 1% not nearly as improved as top 1/10th% which has increased more.
	In 25 years 	Top    20% up 120% ;
			Middle 20% +13% ; 
			Bottom 20% minus 6%  in 5-years of great recession.

If we want income equality we can look to Cuba.
In Cuba, the earnings gap within the majority of the population is smaller than that in most capitalist countries.
THAT'S BECAUSE ALMOST EVERYONE IS POOR.
As the old saying goes, under communism, everyone has a job, and no one works. 
As Cuba Shifts Toward Capitalism, Inequality Growth will become more Visible

	Worried That Allowing Cubans to Have More Money Will Increase "Income Inequality"
		http://reason.com/blog/2015/02/24/new-york-times-worried-that-allowing-cub

Class Discussion

The actually class was conducted as " Women's Inequality."
Cited examples of pre-woman inequality wage differentials so as to point that the issue is more complex than gender.
Big point of proof of prejudice against women, by Pres O', is the few number of woman CEOs.
It was pointed out that there are two things.
    1 . There is a time delay. CEO's today had a career of 30 years ago when there were few woman qualified for executive positions. Today there are more woman graduates than men in ALL disciplines, including STEM.   In fifty years we may be lamenting the fewer men in CEO positions.
    2 . There is an old-boys system that will slow the rise of woman. Social change is slow.
Title Nine -- woman's sports equality -- was cited. And, being Marshalltown, the conversation degenerated into Sports.
An observation to get back onto the subject was "if sports is preparation for executive success, we should soon see a number of big, black CEOs."
Pre-meeting notes above was presented. Conversation then resumed on sports.

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Last updated : Feb 27, 2015
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