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"The Haves and the Have-Nots"

Catherine Rampell, Economix, NYT:

India’s poorest ventile corresponds with the 4th poorest percentile worldwide. And its richest? The 68th percentile. Yes, that’s right: America’s poorest are, as a group, about as rich as India’s richest.

Kind of blows your mind, right?

Not really, no. But I know some people choosing to live in tent cities whose minds might be blown, were those minds not already so filled with Whip-it fumes and warmed over Howard Zinn paraphrasings that the center long since gave up trying to hold.

(h/t J Henke)

36 Replies to “"The Haves and the Have-Nots"”

  1. batboy says:

    Dude! “Whip-It!”

    Unless … those protestors are smoking dogs?!?!?!?!!!

    I mean, I’ve heard of “Labradorean,” but this goes too far.

    (Sorry. Just had a light lunch. Blood sugar and smart-ass both up.)

  2. Jeff G. says:

    Yes, true, right.

  3. dicentra says:

    It doesn’t matter that our poor are not actually poor: they’re poor by comparison to the rich, and that’s all that matters.

    Because a contented populace can’t be counted on to rouse any rabble on behalf of Those Who Would Rule Over Us.

  4. Joe says:

    It is nice to be raised in a country weathy and tolerant enough to let you act like a fucking moron well into your thirties.

    A waste…but nice.

  5. What would blow my mind is the percent of the top tenth percentile of the richest Americans who are Indian or of Indian descent vs the percent of all Americans who are Indian or of Indian descent.

  6. Questioned answered, kinda. Questions raised, definitely (not really).

    Asians with a median income of $64,308 were the top earners, with non-Hispanic Whites following with $54,620. Hispanics with $37,759 came next while Blacks earned the least at $32,068.

  7. happyfeet says:

    I’ve never heard the word ventile in my whole life I think he made it up

  8. happyfeet says:

    she I mean

  9. sdferr says:

    Somebody said that about progressivism one day long ago. Didn’t matter.

  10. McGehee says:

    Happy, I think it has something to do with Starbucks.

  11. happyfeet says:

    that makes sense … have-nots have to settle for grande for now but that doesn’t mean they can’t dream

  12. Squid says:

    A waste…but nice.

    You know what else is nice? Being given a podium to go on at length about the sin of Greed, while carefully excluding from the audience anyone who might ask an uncomfortable question about Envy.

  13. BBHunter says:

    – Never reside in an economically challenged country.
    – Never pet a burning dog.

    – Words to live by.

  14. DarthLevin says:

    I may have an opportunity to visit Bangalore for business in the next few months. It will be interesting to keep this in mind if I go there.

  15. geoffb says:

    Ventile.

    Is she thinking of quintile?

  16. McGehee says:

    A quintile is a fifth (hic).

    A ventile is an infantile venting — which, that’s what the filthy #Occupy hippies are doing…

  17. Kevin says:

    Yes, but which is the most fortunate plogentile?

  18. DarthLevin says:

    A ventile is a twentieth.

    A quintile is one of them fancy-shmancy Penrose tiles what look purty but ain’t summetrical-like.

  19. bh says:

    OT: Came across this in Jeff’s twitter feed. Worth a quick read.

    (I’m retweeting in comments now? Guess so. The future is confusing.)

  20. mojo says:

    Ah, the lovely Irishman…

    “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…”

  21. Sigivald says:

    Dicentra said: It doesn’t matter that our poor are not actually poor: they’re poor by comparison to the rich, and that’s all that matters.

    I’ve noticed that myself.

    Lots of talk about “gaps” and the Gini coefficient.

    No talk about the actual standard of living of the American poor, or its change (upward, turns out) over time.

    No outrage to be gained by that, because the picture is far too rosy, in comparison to the alternative version.

  22. BBHunter says:

    – On a somewhat related topic:

    – Obama: “We’re not campaigning”

    – Hair plugs: “Are we campaigning….Of course we are.”

    – …And then it seems someone stole his podium and pres. seals, but worse of all, his TELEPROMPTER!

    – There are a number of articles describing how Dems are staying far away from the Won because the situation has become so toxic. Even the former DNC chair declined to go on the tour, so Bummblefuck is down to asking the Republican governor to go along, and the O camp removed some cities that have targeted Congressmen in the upcoming elections.

    – It’s nice to live in a country where the VP makes himself and the president look like morons on a daily basis.

  23. DarthLevin says:

    No talk about the actual standard of living of the American poor, or its change (upward, turns out) over time.

    I heard one of those reich-wingnut radio screechers say something along the lines of, “Capitalism’s method of wealth redistribution is an increased standard of living.” It made me stop and think.

  24. A fine scotch says:

    Darth,

    One of my good friends goes to Bangalore about once a year for work. Really interesting place. Apparently, you can hire a person for the equivalent of about $5/day as personal assistant. They’ll do errands for you, wash your clothes, drive you around, etc.

  25. cranky-d says:

    The poor have air-conditioning, multiple color televisions, half of them own their own home, etc. They are basically 12 years behind the middle class for their standard of living. I think that’s pretty darned good, and capitalism is the reason it is this way. The progressives intimate that they will raise everyone’s standard of living, but in reality all they will do is lower everyone’s standard of living. Equality!

  26. Blake says:

    Cranky, yeah, but do the poor have HD Cable?

    The horror of not catching “How I met Your Mother” in high def.

  27. Squid says:

    If you’ve downloaded an app for your smartphone that lets you send an “I’m being arrested” tweet and text to all your friends and family just by pushing one button, then you’re doing the whole “I’m impoverished and you need to pay my student loans and my rent and buy me a Vespa” thing all wrong.

    P.S. Don’t let the crackheads steal your shit, Mr “Proper Tea Is Theft.”

  28. Squid says:

    The horror of not catching “How I met Your Mother” in high def.

    Or Castle! Just last night, the missus was talking about the little scar on Nathan Fillion’s forehead. I was going to make a similar observation about a detail of Stana Katic’s anatomy, but thought better of it.

  29. DarthLevin says:

    I just gotta say, Norv Turner in closeup on HD is a horrible, horrible sight.

  30. Spiny Norman says:

    The progressives intimate that they will raise everyone’s standard of living, but in reality all they will do is lower everyone’s standard of living. Equality!

    It doesn’t matter to the Progressives (sic) that the “poor” in America would be considered fabulously wealthy by 99% of the rest of the world’s population. Somebody, somewhere has more than they do, and THIS CANNOT STAND.

    Here I sit, mired in the lower middle class, by no one’s fault but my own (because of career decisions I made that didn’t work out as I had hoped – oh well, starting over…), with far less of the latest cool shit many of the “poor” have, and I don’t give a flying fuck how rich someone else is – hey, someone else earned good money to build the rich guy’s 50-room mansion, earned good money building his yacht, earned good money building his Gulfstream jet – and I have yet to hear one compelling argument showing how I am to benefit personally if the left-wing liberals (sic) tear him down. The top 1% already pay 40% of all income taxes, the highest percentage in decades. If the Democrats raise that by any significant amount, the rich guys will just move their wealth offshore, just as they did in the 1950s – whose 90% top marginal rate some of the more ignorant Progressives (sic) want to return to.

  31. Slartibartfast says:

    I’m guessing that pretty much everyone is aware of the latest in have/have not transactions:

    Occupy Wall Street protesters said yesterday that packs of brazen crooks within their ranks have been robbing their fellow demonstrators blind, making off with pricey cameras, phones and laptops — and even a hefty bundle of donated cash and food.

    “Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment,” said Nan Terrie, 18, a kitchen and legal-team volunteer from Fort Lauderdale.

    “I had my Mac stolen — that was like $5,500. Every night, something else is gone. Last night, our entire [kitchen] budget for the day was stolen, so the first thing I had to do was . . . get the message out to our supporters that we needed food!”
    Crafty cat burglars sneaked into the makeshift kitchen at Zuccotti Park overnight and swiped as much as $2,500 in donated greenbacks from right under the noses of volunteers who’d fallen asleep after a long day whipping up meals for the hundreds of hungry protesters, the volunteers said.

    Who’d have thought that a crowd of people demanding the seizure of wealth from banks, corporations, and the wealthy might also have a few thieves?

  32. BBHunter says:

    …Fort Lauderdale.?

    – Ok…that tears it. Proves what a lot of people have suspected all along. OWS is really just the late fall version of spring break.

  33. Squid says:

    From aMouseforallSeasons over at McCardle’s place, this is just too good not to share:

    Entitlements for all! That’s how we got great, and that’s how we’ll stay great! No need to earn that which someone else already owes you: just make them pay!

    That last bit should go on a bumper sticker or something.

  34. Squid says:

    Slart, the “making off with pricey cameras, phones and laptops” was what prompted my bit at #28 about the smartphone app.

    Also, I enjoyed one commenter’s point that the chick has no friggin’ idea how much her laptop cost, most likely because Daddy (a 1%er, I’m sure) bought it for her.

  35. happyfeet says:

    Film critic Pauline Kael worked at McCall’s from 1965 to 1966, and was reportedly fired after writing a highly unfavorable review of The Sound of Music.

    I read this on the internet today

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