[Repost] Income inequality turns "neglected tropic diseases" into American diseases of "the poor living among the wealthy"

On Wednesday Cory Doctorow posted on Boing Boing Income inequality turns "neglected tropic diseases" into American diseases of "the poor living among the wealthy". From Cory's post, "Chagas, hookworm disease, cysticercosis, and chikungunya -- just to name a few. They cluster in the American south and southwest, and disproportionately effect the poorest Americans, who are usually also the brownest Americans." Read the post and become informed on this obvious collateral damage associated with income equality.

Income Inequality: An Empirical View

Worthy article on inequality from pre-industrial societies to the present can be found at ourworldindata.org/ web site. Below is graph from the study.

Another Chart That Explains Inequality

April 20, 2015: The chart shows how between 1930-1970's only the bottom 90% saw their income rise. Since then, only the top 1% has had increase, dramatic increase. The entire analysis with article by Matt O'Brien that support the chart is found on the Washington Post website.

Sometimes Simply Questioning Inequality Helps

I propose that it would be beneficial for the inequality naysayers to question their position by creating a SWOT analysis. Like the benefits of debate, the simple act of questioning can lead to awareness. I was inspired by this related inequality solution in the headline article "Thousands Of Indian Schools Implement Gender Classes To Fight Inequality" in the latest issue of Inequality web-paper.

Atlanta, again the USA leader in income inequality

Thumbnail: Creative Loafing Atlanta reports that the Brookings Institute, a Washington, D.C. think-tank, published a report showing that Atlanta has the highest income inequality of USA's largest cities. This is the lead story in bot paper.li Inequality. This in no joke.

From 85 to 80

In 2014 it was 85 individuals. In 2015 it is 80 individuals who have the same wealth as the bottom 3.5 billion people. Max Lawson, Oxfam’s Head of Global Policy and Campaigns reports on this here /peak-inequality-and-rolex-rockers/

What happened to the five of 2014?

1979-2012 1% percent's incomes grows by 181%

The headline article of the autobot web paper Inequality is "5 Charts That Show How the Middle Class Is Disappearing." Of course, this is OLD news to most of you readers. The charts of the article are well produced and the most dramatic one for me was the one captioned "From 1979-2012, the 1 Percent's Incomes Grew by 181 Percent" hence the title of this posting. The article was written by Katie Rose Quandt and published by the billmoyers.com. You might note that Ralph Nader shared this article with Inequality and I am the publisher. Am I gazing at a digital whirlpool or caught in one? With this post I feed the spiders and web crawlers. Ponder and enjoy your day.

The Expense of Being Poor

I came across this January 19, 2015 NYTimes Charles M. Blow opinion article "charles-blow-how-expensive-it-is-to-be-poor" that I now recommend to you. I was particularly struck by this restatement from the St. Louis Federal Reserve in 2010:

"Unbanked consumers spend approximately 2.5 to 3 percent of a government benefits check and between 4 percent and 5 percent of payroll check just to cash them. Additional dollars are spent to purchase money orders to pay routine monthly expenses. When you consider the cost for cashing a bi-weekly payroll check and buying about six money orders each month, a household with a net income of $20,000 may pay as much as $1,200 annually for alternative service fees — substantially more than the expense of a monthly checking account."

Disclosure: As a middle class individual having sufficient cash flow issues that require a banking need for me, I recommend First Republic Bank to you the reader. I discovered this bank when I became irate at the 4% fee on a $50 cash withdrawal from any ATM endowed banks. First Republic reimburses me the ATM fees charged by all banks world-wide. It is regrettable that I must keep a minimum balance in my checking account - - however if I go under, First Republic customer service is so responsive that they almost always waive the fee retroactively.