Picture inequality today thus:
Imagine people's height being proportional to their income, so that someone with average income is of average height. Now imagine the entire adult population of America is walking past you in a single hour, in ascending order of income.
The first passers-by, the owners of loss-making businesses, are invisible: their heads are below the ground. Then comes the jobless and the working poor, who are midgets. After half an hour the strollers are still only waist high-since America's median income is only half the mean. It takes nearly 45 minutes before normal-sized people appear. But then, in the final minutes, giants thunder by. With 6 minutes to go, they are 12 feet tall. When the 400 highest earners walk by, right at the end, each is more than two miles tall.
No comments:
Post a Comment