Is The 1% The Same Everywhere?

Alan Greenspan argued that his policies had nothing to do with the US financial crisis. He pointed to financial crises in the rest of the world and claimed that it was a global phenomenon. The conservative economist, Alan Meltzer, made a similar argument about increasing income inequality. This article points to data which suggests that pattern of inequality growth in the US is not explained by common factors in the global economy. The growth in the share of income in the US is greater than it has been in similar countries and some countries have had little growth in income inequality. The 40 year stagnation in median household income growth is also unique to the US. Moreover, the growth in the top 1%'s share of income cannot be explained by arguing that the global economy has placed a premium on rare skills possessed by the top 1%. The growth in executive income in the US surpasses that in the rest of the world substantially. Are US bankers and Enron executives that much smarter than those in the rest of the world?

The bottom line is that conservatives will do what they can to deflect attention from factors unique to the US. If that is successful, there will be no need to examine policies in the US that have contributed to income inequality. More importantly, it will impede efforts to develop policies that might reverse the trend in the US.