I Dream Of Gini Coefficient

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You may have witnessed the ideological clash between Vincent Browne (above) and Dan O’Brien (top), Irish Times Economics Editor over the extent of the wealth gap in Ireland on last night’s Tonight with Vincent Browne on TV3.

It got pretty intense.

Browne said despite the bank debt Ireland is the16th richest country in the world (if you exclude the oil sheikdoms).

O’Brien disagreed (with the ranking of 16th) and said we’re actually 35th, accusing the host of excluding countries he didn’t like. (Dan even brought in the figures).

He added that wealth taxes are ‘very unusual’ around the world and quizzed Browne on how more equal distribution could possibly happen – and even suggested the electorate isn’t interested in such measures.

He said: ‘Nobody is voting for this. You’ve been talking about this for decades. People don’t seem to want it when it comes to election time. How is it going to be achieved? Are you going to go in and take their bank accounts? Are you going to take their homes off them? How do you achieve this equality issue?’

During the boom, he claimed, more money went on welfare than public sector pay – despite public sector workers being very well organised.
Browne replied: “We were one of the most unequal countries in the western world, according to the OECD in the boom years.”

O’Brien literally exclaimed “Vincent, if I hear you say that again, I’m really gonna knock my head off the desk. That is absolute rubbish and because you repeat it a million times, will not make it true.”

BOTH men then said that OECD figures would back up their relative positions.

They then discussed the gini coefficient.

Which is when we went to bed rang Ewok’s dad.

He said:

The Gini Coefficient is a measurement from zero to  one [ zero – perfect egalitarianism. 1 – perfectly unequal wealth distribution]. That’s what all these figures are saying. And according to this, “Ireland is the eight most unequal country in OECD countries’.
If you scroll down to page 2, top of the page I think Figure 2 is what illustrates VinB’s argument best. It basically shows from 2009 to 2010 a rapid growth in inequality. Dan was wrong. What 2010 to 2012 figure would show is another question…

Watch show here

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