A Middle-class adult in Finland owns $122 for every billion dollars of his/her nation's wealth. US?

[The Straight Story]

A middle-class adult in Finland owns $122 for every billion dollars of his or her nation's wealth. In Canada it's $13. In the U.S. it's 60 cents. Only middle-class adults in China and India earn less. Higher taxes on U.S. corporations could help redress the discrepancy.

“The American people are on our side,” says Rep. Keith Ellison, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “The time is now.”

Ellison was talking to a small group of writers and activists about higher tax rates for U.S. corporations. Although he was upbeat, Ellison acknowledged that winning those tax increases would be an uphill fight.

That kind of effort can’t succeed without widespread public action behind it. Can an organized movement be created to support tax increases for corporations?

Stories

When organizer and Harvard professor Marshall Ganz says that social change begins with the telling of stories, he’s not necessarily talking about the stories in this graph. Although taxation can seem like a dry subject, even a simple image like this one resonates with powerful and troubling tales:


http://thecontributor.com/economy/popular-movement-higher-taxes-now-would-be-story

[NaturalHigh]

1. I wish I could say that this surprised me.

Sadly, it doesn't.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. As I pointed out on an earlier thread, the $122 to $0.60 comparison is meaningless

because it is caused mainly by the difference in population size.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3140924

If you looked at a typical American state, you'd get the same median wealth, but the total GDP of the state would be far smaller that the total GDP of the USA - so the 60 cents figure would go up.

Take a look at the article which started this: http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-usa/more-evidence-americas-middle-class-sliding-toward-third-world , and use column 6 - ratio of median wealth to mean wealth, or column 9 - Gini index of wealth distribution. Both show that wealth is far more unevenly distributed in the USA than just about any other developed country, but they are meaningful measures. Column 7 mainly tells you the USA has a large population. Try comparing the USA with Sweden - roughly the same mean wealth, and median wealth, but the Swedish median wealth/total GDP figure is far higher - because median wealth is a per person figure, while total GDP is 'per country'.