Ranting to /dev/null

I thought that when they first showed footage of the people filing into the Superdome Sunday night. They were, almost without exception, African Americans. They either didn't have a car, or couldn't afford the gas money to drive around the southeast aimlessly for God only knows how long.

On the wealth issue, I agree with you that a successful entrepreneur benefits the economy (and society) by creating new jobs, which allow for more opportunities for people who previously didn't have them, but there are two things wrong with saying that the creation of wealth is "the only solution to poverty."

First, poverty is a tough cycle to get out of. Jobs created by the upper middle class are filled by the lower middle class. Factors like geography (i.e., living in slums), education, language (both native tongues and slang), appearance, etc. tend to keep people from jumping classes.

Second, I believe that 'trickle-down' works in theory, but in practice, the amount that makes it to the bottom really doesn't change all that much. There are too many people to grab a chunk of that larger share along the way. Why would a company pay a manual laborer more when there are tons of eager workers who would gladly do it for much less? With the creation of wealth, the rich get rich, and the poor get only slightly less poor.

More important than the creation of wealth is the creation of opportunities....giving people a leg up even when it's not in your financial best interest, simply because it will ultimately be the best thing for society.

I think you're overlooking the fact that even the people currently suffering in New Orleans are a lot better off than they would be if they'd been in El Salvador or Honduras. Hurricane Mitch was negligably stronger than Katrina, but it hit Central America and killed up to 20,000 people. Katrina hit an area at least as densely populated and killed maybe a thousand tops. Mitch caused between $7-8 billion dollars in damage, but Katrina will cost at least $30 billion to fix. Why? Because we live in a wealthier country. The poverty level in the US for a single person is greater than the average GDP per capita of many countries. For a single person it's $8980. For a family of four it's $18400. The GDP per capita of Honduras is $2800, which means that most of the people in the country survive on less than that. This isn't "slightly less poor", it's a 200-300% increase, and it's the difference between mass starvation and everyone having enough to eat. Costa Rica, the richest country in Latin America, has a GDP per capita of only $9600. Ours is $40100. There are plenty of people in this country who don't have many opportunities and will never be able to do anything but live from paycheck to paycheck, but barring massive natural disasters, starvation isn't a big problem here. This is a big deal.

Furthermore, wealth creates infrastructure. There wouldn't even have been levees if there hadn't been a significant chunk of accumulated wealth sitting around which lets a society afford massive public works projects. The fact that it took the 4th strongest Atlantic hurricane on record to do this to New Orleans, a city which has seen dozens of hurricanes over its almost 300 year history, is a testimony to just now good the levees have been. A poorer country wouldn't have a city at all.

Wealth is opportunity. Money doesn't by everything, and it doesn't buy happiness, but poverty doesn't buy anything, opportunity or no.

Wealth does create opportunity, but it's not the ONLY thing that does. The word "only" is the part that I was disagreeing with.

I do recognize that the infrastructure that saved many lives was created due to wealth, and I thank God that I won the geo-political lottery. I'm just saying that more created wealth doesn't get spread evenly down to the bottom. Fiscal distribution is top heavy.

Also, straight dollar comparisons between economies can be misleading because of different pricing indexes.

For example, a gallon of gasoline in Caracas is $.16. So you don't need as much income to have an equivalent standard of living.

The reason that you mainly see black people in trouble in New Orleans isn't only that they are poor. It's that most of most of New Orleans is black, around 67%. See demographics, they also are poor.

Two things:

1.) Nobody claimed that created wealth gets "spread evenly down to the bottom." It doesn't, and it shouldn't. But it _does_ benefit everyone with opportunity and wealth. Infrastructure, well-equipped emergency personnel, lack of disease, aid organizations, etc.

2.) "the amount that makes it to the bottom really doesn't change all that much." This may be true, but it's also irrelevant. The bottom quintile may not rise much, but in the States, people are always rising out of the bottom quintile.

Finally, some food for thought on alleged "price-gouging": "Censoring Pleas for Help" http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=4222

I'm actually in agreement with Stephen about the fact that unless you're rich, your income doesn't rise very quickly. But I'd agree with Nick that this doesn't really matter. Inequality doesn't bother me at all.

But I'd also disagree with Nick about people rising out of the bottom quintile: doesn't really happen much anymore. I'm not sure what the exact figure is, but between two-thirds and three-quarters of a given income quintile's children will be in that quintile.

Gas may only retail for $0.16 in Caracas, but that doesn't mean that you can actually buy gas for that price. Soviet Russia had decidedly moderate fuel prices, but shortages meant that most of it was sold on the black market instead of at the pump. It was a kind of "$1.00 a gallon but unavailable at any price" kind of thing. This does on in Africa a lot: government price caps and subsidies prevent people from charging all that much for gas, but the price is irrelevant when there isn't gas to be had.

Actually, don't children usually end up in _lower_ quintiles for a while? Regardless, here are some numbers. They're published at Heritage, so take 'em with a grain (or three) of salt.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/BG1418.cfm