Declining Inequality in Latin America: Are the Good Times Over? - Welcome and Overview

9:00 – 10:00 am: Welcome and Overview: Setting the Stage

Joukowsky Forum

Chair: Richard Snyder (Brown University)

Ricardo Lagos (Brown University)

Rebeca Grynspan (SEGIB)

Nora Lustig (Tulane University)

[skilfulCOM]

Inequality always gets worse - incomes diverge - any measure that says different is a statistical confidence trick.

I have analysed the Gini coefficent and other Income inequality metrics, including the highly praised Palma ratio and proven them to be useless. Nobody in authority can show my findings wrong.

Think about it – the gap between the rich and poor always gets wider. The poorest hardly get any rise and are still in poverty - those of us above get little more - whilst rich fat-cats increase their incomes by up to 30%, compounded year on year into a massive annual fortune. Incomes never converge to improve inequality - they think us idiots.

My findings prove this beyond any doubt. The con is to hide the ever widening income inequality between a countries powerful rich families and the rest of the population. Government and authorities have utter contempt of us.

If the government measured weight problems by ignoring the obese and dangerously underweight - you would say they were corrupt and trying to hide the problems - wouldn't you? That is how they measure inequality - ignore the richest and poorest groups - those millions of people most affected by what is being measured. For political motive.

Indeed, the UK Statistics Authority (Deputy Head of Regulation) actually admitted to me about the Gini, “I agree with your observation that it is not ideal if your particular interest is in inequalities at the top or bottom of the spectrum”. The first time perhaps they disclosed the fact they know it is “not ideal” for showing the inequalities of the rich or poor.

Here is the video I sent them to explain.


Now look at the Palma ratio, which is the poorest 40% compared to richest 10% of the population - praised because it is said to show inequality better.

It helps if you do not think of the 40% and 10% as two large families – the simple comparison that the Palma ratio shows.

That is where professors go wrong. They are, of course, millions of separate families on differing divergent incomes, divided into two large groups.

If you can think for a moment about just the richest 10% part - concentrate on that.
In any one year the bottom of that range will rise relatively little, whilst the richest at the top income can rise by millions.

Quote: FTSE 100 directors enjoy 27pc pay rises [during recession]

So even in that range alone, inequality has worsened.

Now think about the poorest 40% range of population – similar will happen there.

The bottom of 40% range raises little or not at all (with poorest staying in poverty) whilst the top of the 40% range rises much more.

Inequality has worsened in this range also.

The outcome being that both ranges may have increased – but *undeniably* so has inequality - the gap between bottom and top of population most.

So at the end of this you could see ‘inequality’ using the Palma has improved, purely because of the bottom range total rising more – a statistical con.

Just because the lower range total (with increased inequality) is risen more than the upper range total (with increased inequality) - they say 'inequality' has improved.

Are people really that thick?

These people are intellectual professors of mathematics and economics - I mean, you understand and you think they do not?

That is how the deception in similar comparison inequality measures work e.g. S80/S20.

skilful.com