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The Shifting Baseline of American Money

By jjacquet on June 11, 2007.

ParisHilton.jpgThis weekend, the New York Times Magazine focused on the income gap, which included Lauren Greenfield's latest documentary pieces on Kids and Money. They're nothing magical--just a straightforward look at L.A.'s teenagers, who represent the demographic with the largest spending power in the U.S.

Last night, I also watched the film "Bobby"--with a remarkable cast and less than remarkable storyline. The film succeeded only in moments that used clips from Robert F. Kennedy's real speeches. In one, RFK was in rural coal-mining town where he spoke about the economic hardships and the hungry and destitute people. People were hungry and destitute? Enough to make a Presidential speech about it? In 1968?

I also just finished The End of Poverty (2005) by Jeffrey Sachs at Columbia University's Earth Institute. A few of Sachs' points:

In 2002, all 191 member states to the UN agreed unanimously to all 8 Millennium Development Goals, one of which was to ensure environmental sustainability and reverse the loss of environmental resources. Sachs (2005) estimates 0.5 percent of GDP in Official Development Assistance (ODA) will be necessary to meet these goals. The U.S., Japan, U.K. Spain, and France are critically behind on meeting the goal of 0.5 percent of GDP.

Incidentally, at the March 2002 international conference on financing for development the U.S. urged all developed countries to make "concrete efforts" to achieve 0.7 percent of GNP in Offical Development Assistance (In 2004, U.S. still only gave $15 billion or 0.14 percent of GNP).

The U.S. per capita GNP is rising by about 1.9 percent per year. The extra amount of money needed to go from our current level of aid to the goal of 0.7 percent, is less than one third of a single year's growth of GNP.

The combined income of the 400 wealthiest Americans exceeds that of the combined GDP for four African nations (Botswana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Uganda), with a combined population of more than 161 million people.

So what? So, in the face of such extreme decadence (think MTV's "Sweet Sixteen"), have Americans forgotten that we didn't used to have so much money? And now, with so much money, the U.S. makes promise after promise of foreign assistance that we repeatedly fail. American Foreign Aid (and integrity), just another shifting baseline.

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Don't you think that the common tone of all the NYT Magazine articles about poverty is, as my friend put it, "Economic fairness is nice in theory but we can have too much equality. Be careful with change. Economic inequality is not that bad."?
They are all great at he-said-she-said model of injecting doubt. Matt Bai sounds like a concern troll.

I think the common tone of the NYT Magazine was, indeed, as weak as the hungry, poor people that they were supposedly addressing. Even Rob Walker's piece Cleaning Up, which was perhaps my favorite, required reading between the lines to get at any deeper meaning. But I am a Lauren Greenfield devotee--though she does a better job at portraying the ulcers of wealth (anorexia, female body image, and now, wealthy kids) than the hardships of poverty.

I too have read Sachs book, and what stood out for me was the basic fact that today, more so than ever before, we have the financial capital to end poverty. We just have to decide that that goal is more important than designer clothes and a 4th car.