Economic Inequality Matters

Income inequality is the ratio of the wealth of the top 20% compared to the lowest 20% in each country.  Health and social problems is an index of mental illness, trust, life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity, educational performance, teenage birth, homicide, imprisonment, and social mobility.

According to the 1870 federal census, one percent of the people owned 72 percent of all the wealth in the great industrial city of Pittsburgh.  What’s more, just half of these wealthiest one percent (0.5% of the population) owned 59 percent, well more than half of all the wealth in historic Pittsburgh.  In fact, all

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Photo of the Day: Hillary Clinton During the 2008 St. Patrick's Day Parade

Hillary Clinton Marches in the 2008 St. Patrick's Day Parade in Pittsburgh on March 15th, 2008. Photo by Matthew David Carter.

On March 15, 2008 Hillary Clinton walked in Pittsburgh’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.  Throughout the latter half of March and most all of April she was waging an intense campaign throughout Pennsylvania to

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Photo of the Day: 2008 St. Patrick's Day Trampled Obama Sign

Trampled Obama Campaign Sign Following St. Patrick's Day Parade March 15, 2008 in Pittsburgh, PA. Photo by Matthew David Carter.

On March 15, 2008 I photographed the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Pittsburgh.  This large annual parade in Pittsburgh is one of the largest in the country, and this year it fell in the

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Review of ECONned by Yves Smith

Outsourced to James Kwak of the excellent Baseline Scenario blog who writes that Yves Smith in ECONned :

describes how trading in CDOs built out of mortgage-backed securities drove mortgage lending, and not the other way around. In the conventional account, unscrupulous lenders and investment banks were the creators of those toxic assets; in Smith’s account,

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Imagine a Progressive United States

Well, some jokesters did and created a fake New York Times website complete with articles.

Headlines include such gems as:

“National Health Insurance Act Passes”

“Nation Sets Its Sites on Building a Sane Economy”

and

“Troops to Return Immediately”