You probably already know this but . . .

. . . its tough being young and broke: 

Poverty is an astonishingly common experience here in the world's richest country. As I wrote this morning, almost 40 percent of American adults experience it for at least a year by age 60.

But you know who poverty is especially common among? Young adults.

The military lifts combat ban on women

From the NYT:

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Thursday formally lifted the military’s ban on women in combat, saying that not every woman would become a combat soldier but that every woman deserved the chance to try.

They said that the new policy was in many ways an affirmation of what was already occurring on the battlefield, where women have found themselves in combat over the past decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that it was essential that the military offer fully equal opportunities to both women and men.

“They’re fighting and dying together, and the time has come for our policies to reflect that reality,” Mr. Panetta said at a packed Pentagon news conference.

The decision follow a lawsuit which argues that women are effectively already i ncombat situations, but cannot take advantage of that fact to advance their military careers.

Equality in the US, Continued

The following chart puts inequality in the United States in comparative perspective.



Read here for an explanation of the graphs and its source:

Here the population of each country is divided into 20 equally-sized income groups, ranked by their household per-capita income. These are called “ventiles,” as you can see on the horizontal axis, and each “ventile” translates to a cluster of five percentiles. . . .

Now on the vertical axis, you can see where any given ventile from any country falls when compared to the entire population of the world.

For example, trace the line for Brazil, a country with extreme income inequality.

Brazil’s bottom ventile — that is, the poorest 5 percent of the Brazilian population, shown as the left-most point on the line — is about as poor as anyone in the entire world, registering a percentile in the single digits when compared to the income distribution worldwide. Meanwhile, Brazil also has some of the world’s richest, as you can see by how high up on the chart Brazil’s top ventile reaches. In other words, this one country covers a very broad span of income groups.

Now take a look at America.

Notice how the entire line for the United States resides in the top portion of the graph? That’s because the entire country is relatively rich. In fact, America’s bottom ventile is still richer than most of the world: That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants.

Now check out the line for India. India’s poorest ventile corresponds with the 4th poorest percentile worldwide. And its richest? The 68th percentile. Yes, that’s right: America’s poorest are, as a group, about as rich as India’s richest.
This tells me two things. First, obviously, all Americans are living high above the world average, but it also tells me that as we continue to globalize we have nowhere to go but down. The middle class in India who live less well than our poor, are also the engineers who will work for less than ours do.

Is Growing Inequality a Problem?

A ten part series.

Coverture

I just ran across a story with the following link to a definition of "coverture."

. . .in most nations. The state or condition of a married woman. During coverture, the being of the wife is civilly merged, for many purposes, into that of her husband; she can, therefore, in general, make no contracts without his consent, express or implied. To this rule there are some exceptions: she may contract when it is for her benefit, such as to save her from starvation. In some cases, when coercion has been used by the husband to induce her to commit crime, she is exempted from punishment.
In 2301 we will cover civil rights in a month or so. This fits with our overview of gender discrimination.

On that note, I heard an interesting related story regarding the founding of Houston. The conventional story is that the Allen Brothers founded the city. The revised version is that is was actually done by their mother, she came up with the idea of a port city on the gulf and had the money to do it, but law did not allow her to sign contracts. Only her sons could. That's why they did it.

- Wikipedia: Coverture.

A Meritocracy or an Oligarchy?

Here's text copied from Daily Dish that raises questions about what factors really provide opportunities for success. In case you dont; knwo what (Philips) Andover Academy is, here's a link, as well as a link to a list of their alumni.

I teach at an Ivy, so I could go on at length about the privileges my undergraduates receive. Even in this most recent class, I still had a fair number of students who started at 100k+, flights to the Hamptons, etc... However, what I really wanted to discuss is the effect of elite high schools, which I think is far greater than that of the Ivies. My wife attended Andover, did well, etc... but chose to attend a large public university in the South (read academic burnout here).



After college, from which she barely graduated, she delivered flowers for a living. In short, nothing doing financially or in life. However, a move to NYC (as I was on an academic odyssey) led to an immediate job in finance at a major company. Mind you, this is a person with a degree in communications, who had not taken math since high school. As part of this job, she had a full six months paid to acquire a variety of licences and skills. The interviews for this position extended over a week and nearly every interviewer inquired not about college but Andover.


This pattern has repeated itself as she has changed jobs. Andover is always discussed. If an interviewer went to Exeter or St. Pauls, that must be mentioned. Her college has never been discussed. Even positions which require minimum GPA's, which she could never meet, are waived. She actually leaves this block blank often on applications, and it is never asked about. Currently, she is a manager at top hedge fund without ever having a degree in finance or an MBA.


I think what is missing in this debate is perspective on numbers. The best high schools are very small affairs. The Ivies actually graduate a far greater number of kids. Boarding schools build life long bonds as well that are much stronger due to their size. They take care of their own in ways that Harvard cannot imagine.

Makes you want to work harder huh?