Inequality and lack of social mobility...

A couple of my more recent posts have focused on inequality comparisions between America and other developed nations in Western Europe. As part of my posts, I discoursed that it was somewhat absurd to make a statement along the lines of "Social mobility is at a more developed level in Germany than the United States." I thought I should, in all fairness, offer a rejoinder to myself after reading this article in this week's Economist. The article focuses on Britain, but many of the same statements can be made about America.

Income is distributed more unequally than in most OECD countries, as measured by the widely used Gini coefficient (see chart)—and more unequally than in any rich one except America and Italy. Nor is equality of opportunity much in evidence: a son’s income depends more strongly on his father’s in Britain than in any other country for which the OECD has data.

I am still not totally convinced that this single factor (correlation of father to son's wages) is adequate in measuring social mobility, but it is an interesting little article, and I deserve to have to eat some of it.

Also interesting from this week's print edition, is an article on the "axis of diesel; Iran, Venezuala and Russia.

In sum, Iran, Russia and Venezuela are all likely to be left short of cash—and facing a diminution in their international clout. “Never confuse brilliance with a bull market,” goes a Wall Street saying. The leaders of the oily trio may have thought high oil prices were an adequate substitute for good governance. In many quarters, the difference is now painfully clear.

I'm interested to see how these three respond to this rather sudden reduction in monetary power, especially Iran - given the looming elections next summer.