Hello, and welcome to today's Inequality Report...

[BritishSnail]

Hahaha your videos are brilliant :-)

[Choirathlete]

Wtf is up with Italy on the map?

[mantonio121773]

excellent



[DrEnsamhet]

yeah I live in Scandinavia!

[Cornampoo]

@DrEnsamhet how do you like your tax rates?

[DrEnsamhet]

@Cornampoo they're awesome thank you very much

[Cornampoo]

@DrEnsamhet finally, someone that is content with the status quo. I thought your type of people had vanished from the earth, but apparently not.

[DrEnsamhet]

@Cornampoo we are a dying breed unfortunatly

[Cornampoo]

@DrEnsamhet I am of the opinion that we can create more of 'your breed' by changing the welfare state into a free society with less taxes, less regulations, less government spending and a system of sound money.

[DrEnsamhet]

@Cornampoo probably

[Anarkokommunist]

Wow, he has no understanding of how theworld works.

[Takashijsi]

@Anarkokommunist Actually. This is very simplified but it's exactly how the world works....

[vikintosh]

Great video!!

[SamuelTrygger]

Great! :) But I'd like to point out a minor detail (well, not that minor actually, but anyway): At least parts of Scandinavia (i.e. Sweden) isn't exactly "experiencing a sustained jet stream of equality causing thermal pockets of trust, social mobility and better health to spring up". Unfortunately our current government here in Sweden is striving hard to stop all that. Just thought that you might like to know that (unless you already know it — then ignore my comment).

[MarmaladeINFP]

The Spirit Level is an awesome book. The data it provides has given me a lot of insight. I live in the US & I love the charts comparing the states. Texas & California are both wealthy states with high wealth disparity & they also have high rates of social problems. I live in Iowa which is slightly below average in wealth while being highly ranked in wealth equality & yep Iowa has low rates of social problems. It goes to show you that wealth is only good if it's used towards the good of all.

[AtheistTower]

@MarmaladeINFP Yes but such social ills do not need to be dealt with by the state. I work at churches, I think they do a better job of dealing with social problems than the government ever could.

[MarmaladeINFP]

@AtheistTower Many people claim various private sector solutions would take care of social ills. But all of it is theory. If private sector solved all problems, we wouldn't have these problems in the first place. We can look back to previous centuries prior to big govt & yet the problems were even worse. When the govt was intervening the most in the early 20th century, the middle class & social mobility was growing & the infrstructure & education were heavily funded with high tax rates.

[AtheistTower]

@MarmaladeINFP

But you're missing the point here, the state can never actually deal with the root cause of the problems, throwing money at every issue that appears - which is the state's tactic - is not going to help the problem it's merely going to present another dependency on the state and then eventually you lock society into a dependency on welfare and governmental help in nearly every way. We're getting to the extreme where govt knows best about what we eat now, it's ridiculous.

[MarmaladeINFP]

@AtheistTower Here are the facts. From the 1940s to 1980, the highest marginal tax rate averaged above 70 percent. Unionization was higher & markets were highly regulated. What happened during this era? Wealth disparity decreased. What happened after this era when taxes were cut, unions were busted, & deregulation was implemented? Wealth disparity increased. The root cause of the problem is corporations. Corporations never have & never will solve their own problems that harm the lower classes.

[AtheistTower]

@MarmaladeINFP

What country are we talking about? The fastest economic and social development within scandinavian countries was prior to the 1950s, these were periods were tax rates were relatively low - compared to the US included - the state was significantly smaller and yet countries like Sweden got from a poverty state (in the 1800s) to one of the wealthiest nations in the developed world; that growth has stagnated thanks to overtaxation and the state's work.

[garyb10673]

@AtheistTower It is not trually about taxation levels but the income gap between those at the 'top' and those at the 'bottom'. Whether a solution to narrowing this gap is at source i.e. wages paid or through the taxation system is the poblem. Japan does have a lower tax economy but as R. Wilkinson points out they have a narrower income gap to begin with whereas Sweden uses tax to narrow this inequality. But it all depends whether you accept the evidence presented.

[AtheistTower]

@garyb10673

Forget the gap, it's pretty irrelevant when both the rich and poor are both getting richer. It's only a worrying indicator when the rich is actually getting richer directly because of the poor - which isn't the case. In fact the rich drag in billions each year into local economies, without them countries would be stagnant and getting nowhere. Japan has a low income inequality due to its culturally and racially heterogenous population.

[babycakesromero]

@shanehogandublin hi, upon your request I have uploaded the transcript which you can now find in the description. I did try to upload as caption subtitles but it came out as gobbledey gook!

[shanehogandublin]

@babycakesromero - Excellent - this will be very helpful for peole with hearing loss. It will also help your Search Engine Optimisation, as Google and other search engines will index the transcript text too.

[babycakesromero]

@shanehogandublin great. have also managed to sort captions so you can now watch it with subtitles too. best. Mr B