from Dirk Ehnts, Econoblog101
The so-called elephant chart (see here) has been discussed a lot recently. It shows that change in real income was very nice for those people on this planet who were neither really poor nor belonged to Western middle class during the period of 1988-2008. The chart was first made popular by Branko Milanovic.
The question that comes to mind automatically is: if we had positive rates of economic growth in the western world from 1988-2008 (and we had!), then were did all that income go? And the answer, at least for the US, you find in another chart, taken from page 62 of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s report:
Any more questions?
