Income Inequality: The Global Haves And Have-Nots In The 21st Century
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Although inequality has recently become one of the current topics "de jour" in the economics profession, Branko Milanovic is certainly not a newbie to this area. Indeed, the World Bank economist and development specialist (currently a visiting presidential professor at CUNY's Graduate Center and a senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study Center), has been studying this particular field of economics since his days as a graduate student. One of his unique contributions has been to link this scholarship to prevailing financial conditions, providing substantial empirical evidence which illustrates how financial bubbles and the increasing financialisation of the global economy has played a key role in terms contributing to greater inequality. What kind of inequality are we talking about? We are used to thinking about inequality within countries--about rich Americans versus poor Americans, for instance. But what about inequality between all citizens of the world? Professor Milanovic's scholarship suggests that when split into ‘inequality within countries’ and ‘inequality between countries’, the latter accounts for by far the biggest gap. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the richest 5 percent of people receive one-third of total global income, as much as the poorest 80 percent. While a few poor countries are catching up with the rich world, the differences between the richest and poorest individuals around the globe are huge and likely growing. This is almost certainly the highest level of relative, and certainly absolute, global inequality at any point in human history. Is there anything we can do to reverse or mitigate this trend? All of these points are discussed in the interview below.
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Poor people own land too. Often, that land cannot be made productive enough to afford to pay more in taxes. What would be done, take the land of the poor right out from under them and force them to rent something more costly to them since their land had been paid off long ago via wages? Why does land always have to be "productive"?
I don't like it. Henry George had a good heart, relatively speaking; however, I don't think his is the answer. -
Anyone interested in discussing Henry George's Progress and Poverty? I can't understand how the topic of poverty and inequality can be discussed without starting with this book.
The interviewee says that assessing whether income inequality is more important than wealth inequality is very difficult - but the Georgist perspective gives us laser-beam precision on this topic.
EDIT: at 16mins the discussion gets to the topic of the economic rent of land, Henry George and LVT :-)
20m 26sLenght
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