[p2p-research] What comes next?

[Ryan Lanham]

You are very likely in the top 20% of wealthy humans if any of the following
are true:

1. You've ever flown in an airplane.
2. You've ever owned a car or motorcycle.
3. You've ever owned an apartment or a plot of ground with freehold and
clear legal rights.
4. You've eaten more than 1800 calories a day most days of your life.

There are now 6.7 billion of us.  10% is 670 million.  20% is 1.34 billion.

In my work, I regularly discuss quintiles.  In education, it is a given that
the top 20% of performers (nearly however measured) do very well in their
societies.  In the US or Europe, they go to college, etc.  The second 20%
get technical degrees or become skilled labor.  Of course some people who do
those things are in the top 20% or in lower quintiles.  These are crude
measures.  But they are real.

The bottom 20% are nearly always associated either with social welfare
systems, mental health systems, or prisons (often all three.)

That is why I have tried to focus on the 3rd and 4th quintiles...those who
will make or break society by either falling into the lot of the bottom 20%
or who can equal the 2nd quintile.  In Nordic countries, success is
basically that the top 20% are equal to the best of the world, but the
middle two quintiles are not only closer to the top, they are far from the
bottom...which, by the way, is pretty sucky even in Nordic countries.

In India, the bottom 85% live sucky lives for the most part that none of us
would want for our friends or children much less ourselves.  The top 2% live
like the US or Sweden.  The 3rd to the 15% percentile quickly descend into a
lousy life.

It's all about the quintiles.  Show me the cut points for each quintile and
the global level of the top quintile, and I'll tell you what your society is
like.





On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 3:41 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree past injustices suck.  So do today's injustices.  I want to help
> people get what they want...things they value...which is growth.  I don't
> know what else can lead to sustainable resolution.
>
> The simple truth is that capitalism has succeeded for more people in a
> broader way than anything else.  There's just no reasonable argument
> contra.  Has it also destroyed people, created injustice, etc.  Of course it
> has.  No reasonable person denies that.  The question is, do you throw the
> baby out with the bathwater?
>
>   On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 10:49 AM, j.martin.pedersen <
> m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 12/07/10 16:24, Daniel Araya wrote:
>> >
>> > 1. I believe free market capitalism has largely proved the happiest time
>> for humans by far.
>>
>> Yeah, fuck the 16 million Africans that laid the foundation for it. They
>> don't count. Fuck the commoners, whose livelihoods were destroyed.
>> Nevermind them. Fuck the forests that were and still are cut down. Fuck
>> the 90% of the Americas' population. Fuck the indigenous still suffering
>> today, such as the Hoarani of whom 10% remain since oil - that liquid
>> that fuel your illusions of happiness - was discovered in their
>> territory 30-35 years ago. And so on. This statement spells racism.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Ryan Lanham
> rlanham1963 at gmail.com
> Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
> P.O. Box 633
> Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
> Cayman Islands
> (345) 916-1712
>
>
>
>


-- 
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
Cayman Islands
(345) 916-1712
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