I spent a lot of time last week pulling up charts on income inequality in the U.S. to use in class.This chart is from the Congressional Budget Office and shows the difference in income distribution between 1979 and 2007. It doesn’t look good, and that was before the recession. The interesting thing is that there… [Read More]
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Your 401(k) is not free money
I recently did a profile of pension reform in the state of Rhode Island for InvestHedge magazine. The treasurer of Rhode Island, Gina Raimondo, was in Chicago to talk about the reform process, and she said that it included a defined contribution plan that was similar to a 401(k) plan, but with one huge difference:… [Read More]
What does the world do with all its young people?
Demographic discussions nowadays tend to concentrate on the aging of the population in so many places, and that’s going on. But at the same time, many places in the world have a growing population of people between the ages of 15 and 24. The chart above is from the United Nations Department of Economic and… [Read More]
The demographics of the world
This chart, from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, shows standard population pyramids for the world for 1950 and 2010, with projections for 2050 and 2100. Men are on the left, women are on the right. This gives some clues about what the economy will look like in the next 90 years…. [Read More]
