U.s. Income Inequality - Worse than Latin america?

there's a new study out today u_s_ income in equality we are now rivaling if not surpassing many latin american countries when it comes economic inequality a new study out today that produces this graph now here's what this graph represents this graph represents as it says inequality in the americas basically what they did was they divided the income of the top twenty percent with the income of the bottom of twenty percent and then looked at individual countries how much more does the top twenty percent in these countries make than the bottom twenty percent and in the united states we are now in the middle of the pack the wealthiest twenty eight percent of americans earn sixteen times more than the poorest twenty percent now what's that what's important about this graph among other things back in nineteen eighty that number sixteen times from ten times in nineteen eighty and so we think about latin america i think a lot of people think about countries that are very economically unequal you think about uh... cities with lots of very poor people lots of of white lots of destitution within these kind of gated communities fortresses where the aristocracy that's we think of that is latin america we don't think of that is our as our own country the data suggest that suggest shows that that's what our country's i've been to some of the gated communities around uh... houston for instance like the sugar land area message describe that actually man lovely area anyway but they're striking inequality between neighborhoods um... what one other interesting facts he said nineteen eighty we had a ten point five uh... if you if you bring up the argument last that's the whole back in nineteen eighty more unequaled that's weird way in venezuela which is interesting sold are you thinking this is very important to talk about uh... when i'd worry is that anyone who's not politically on in the same area has us is going to meet this with will so what it's unequal i mean that's you know you have freedom baby go out there you make as much lasik and some people fail some people succeed but they're incredibly important consequences to this and they actually have quite a bit to do with what america so back when i was enough local sites academia uh... one of the areas that i at the time it was unfortunate for meetings and in fact a very interesting but we talked a lot about uh... what caused regimes the fall whited certain countries fall into chaos and has lots of theories why but there are a couple of books that appear on the last two decades and they have found that one of the strongest correlations between uh... governments falling is within a quality unfortunately a lot of those examples are found in latin america it's not a heart if you really think about it to understand why that would be when you have certain people who have so much more money than the masses at the bottom of the political uh... objectives are gonna be very different and because they have the money they'll be the ones making that the decisions and if a huge portion of the population feels that they have nothing in the no no itis big nothing in the system the system isn't helping them back causes violence otherwise i mean i think that's gonna happen in america and europe too but it happened in these cases for the same reasons as as what we're seeing right now with the economic inequality in this message came out last week on this 'cause there's that every week until it was that the walton family now owns i believe more wealth from the bottom forty percent of americans wasn't eight nine ten people control more wealth in the bottom forty percent of the whole country or the back to the point to the tune that you made earlier about the conservative arguing about this the conservative argument you're right is look we may be more unequal but there's more opportunity here there's more chance to get ahead and here's the thing with that argument even other arguments not trivia and that's not me speaking not exactly a liberal rag the wall street journal speaking couple years ago they did a big study looking at inequality in the united states looking at the economies of europe and found that it's actually more difficult to move up in social economic class in the united states that it is zero socialist countries are now it makes perfect sense right if you're living in a year in-country and i'm not saying they have no problems but if you don't have to worry about as much about affording college you have to worry is with the uh... as much if at all about going bankrupt because of your health care bills is sexually that allows you to get more of focus more of your your energy on succeeding in the economy that gives you a chance to actually move-up without having to worry about being bankrupted by these embedded cost here the united states it's true that in terms of social class mobility it's pretty easy to fall because they've been regard health hell that's only what one illness can can bankrupt a there's a study out what this week that said that that was it's fifty or sixty percent of americans or one economic crisis away from being falling into poverty in terms of their savings so it's truly united sit down towards social mobility is is is more intense than in european countries but moving up it's actually less unless you're really good dancer that then without creative you might be that that's absolutely true