Re: Apologetic.
"That simply means that income inequality is rising.
The measure has no meaning outside the country being measured, it's deleterious effects are psychological and result from comparing self to those at the top in your community and country. The only importance is your relative wealth in society.
That inequality between countries is dropping is nice, but has none of the positive effects on society which reduced inequality within a country does: reduced crime, reduced mortality, reduced child mortality, reduced unrest, increased trust, increased well-being, increased longevity."
This just sounds like rubbish. Reduced inequality across the globe has far better effects *for the average human* than keeping most people poor so a few working-class people in Europe can keep getting tax credits. Of your list, reduced mortality and reduced child mortality, increased well being and increased longevity are far better served on a global scale by taking money from the 80-90 decile and giving it to the bottom 50%. This will increase unrest and crime in the rich countries, but obviously reduce crime and unrest in poor countries, so again we are better globally.
Sure, your country or city will be in flames, but there won't be a war in Syria killing hundreds of thousands, so as a globe we are still doing better.
It's OK to be selfish, we have to be otherwise we'd give all of our money to poor countries, but we should also recognize that we can be selfish even while seemingly being selfless, because we are also generally ignorant of the big picture. Of course, taxing the 1% in the West and giving that money to the poor in the West doesn't appear to stop companies doing very well, and hence standards rising in poor countries as well, so we can maybe even do both!
But I want to take special issue with this line of rubbish: "The only importance is your relative wealth in society." That is complete garbage, as it is only true once you don't really have any problems. Poor people have to worry about clean water, shelter, food, how they would feed themselves if they get ill, access to medicine, etc. That you have to worry about whether you can afford a second flat screen, and you should because everyone else on your street has two, means that you don't have any actual real problems, and should shut up on a global scale. On a local scale, you might be right, but clearly what is important to *you* might not be important to *everyone else on the planet*. You getting that second flat screen might feel important to you, but is it worth killing a thousand children in Mozambique? You might think so, but morally surely it isn't.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
