As Always, an Unequal Pie
THE distribution of wealth lies at the heart of political economics. Nations and empires have risen and fallen, and millions have died, as a result of humanity’s struggle to decide how (or whether) to divide wealth.
But for all that, the level of wealth inequality has remained remarkably consistent over the last 2,000 years, according to a recent study by Branko Milanovic, a researcher with the World Bank, and two economics professors, Peter H. Lindert of the University of California, Davis, and Jeffrey G. Williamson of Harvard University (economics.harvard.edu).
While “human civilization has advanced by leaps and bounds over the past two millennia, income inequality has stayed relatively the same,” Zubin Jelveh of Portfolio.com wrote about the study.
The “inequality extraction ratio” is basically the share of the wealth difference taken by “elites.” Since the United States is the wealthiest nation in history, the potential for elites taking a bigger share of the wealth (without allowing mass starvation) is greater. But they have not done so. “Thus,” the researchers write, “the social consequences of increased inequality may not entail as much relative impoverishment, or as much perceived injustice, as might appear.”
Tim Harford of Slate.com, writing about the same report, called this “faint praise for the United States, perhaps.” But, he added: “It is interesting to observe that while modern societies are rich enough to be much more unequal than their predecessors, they show similar patterns of income inequality. Perhaps — I am speculating wildly — human societies have some hard-wired tolerance for inequality?”
Or perhaps, no matter how wealthy a society, there will always be income inequality, whether or not we are “hard wired” for it.
REWORKED FINANCE SITE AOL has added lots of new features to its Money & Finance site — news feeds, interactive charting abilities and more research data (money.aol.com). But users who just want to look up the price of a stock, and do not know the company’s ticker symbol, still have to take the extra step of looking up the symbol first. On Google Finance, which started in March, users can simply enter the company’s name (finance.google.com).
Despite that convenience, though, Google has been unable to catch the category leader, Yahoo Finance (finance.yahoo.com).
“Google’s service is not even in the top 15 of financial sites and has yet to break 1 million unique visitors a month,” notes theTech Blog of The Financial Times (blogs.ft.com/techblog).
BUBBLE TOWN Myrtle Beach, S.C., tops the list of cities that will be hit hardest by the housing debacle, according to a study by the consulting firm Global Insight (globalinsight.com).
Why Myrtle Beach? One reason is higher insurance premiums in the hurricane-vulnerable resort town.
“But climate-driven insurance costs would appear to take a back seat to ‘get-rich-quick’ madness,” writes Andrew Leonard of Salon. Speculators own a big portion of the housing stock in Myrtle Beach.
ODD PLACES TO EAT The Canada-focused blog Canpages.com has a list, with pictures, of “weird Canadian restaurants” offering “unique options for a dinner you won’t soon forget.”
At O.NOIR in Montreal, the lights are kept off. “With not a ray gone astray, your visual sense essentially shuts down, heightening your other senses,” the blog states.
The vegan Le Spirite Lounge in Montreal has two rules: Diners must “finish their meal to get dessert” and must “finish dessert, or they can never go back.” DAN MITCHELL
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