Interesting...what would this model look like in Germany?

Here's what it looks like in Germany:

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2008/05/germ-m24.html

We are a land of opportunity, not fairness. People don't seem to understand this

Only with fairness comes opportunity.

Here's some rough statistics not only about Germany, but all the countries.

And a list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

Not necessarily true. In America you have the right and opportunity to become who you want to be and what you want to do. But no ones giving it to you on a silver platter. I really hate that word "fair". Who the hell said life was fair? It's not, which is why you work to become successful

China probably is the worst example of disparity between haves and have-nots. And it's supposed to be a Communist country.

Moral of story: doesn't matter where you are or what economic or political system you live under - the rich and strong have it over the weak and poor.

At least in America people have a chance to get out of the cellar. In china that's pretty much impossible. The Chinese don't give opportunity, we do

"There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people." ~ Thomas Jefferson

And so we strive toward a wholesale redistribution of wealth and an as-yet unknown political and economic system.

If President Obama has proved anything, it is that anyone can achieve anything they set their mind to in America.

But Obama couldn't have become President before he did, and there could never have been a Black President before now. So, I guess anyone can achieve anything within the social limitations that a) inform their ambition/aspiration/life trajectory in the first place, and b) determine the likelihood of their fulfilment.

Obama's most certainly not the only one. Thousands of Americans before him proved that, including every German, Italian, English, Irish, Hispanic, Chinese, Japanese, Dominican, and Muslim immigrant that ever set foot here and made a better life for themselves.

Compared to other similar industrialized economies, the US ranks relatively poorly in class/income mobility.
http://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/

And this inequality has been increasing much faster since the mid nineties.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42400.pdf

"As a percentage of national income, corporate profits stood at 14.2 percent in the third quarter of 2012, the largest share at any time since 1950, while the portion of income that went to employees was 61.7 percent, near its lowest point since 1966."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/busine...limps.html?_r=0

Yes, mobility is the point.

The Chinese government doesn't care at all about the well-being or opportunities for poor people. If you're born to a poor peasant, then that's probably what you're going to be as well.
Here in Germany we have a problem with educational immobility (don't know how it's in the US). If your parents don't have a college education, you're very unlikely to have one either. This is very much a problem with the Turkish community.

In East Germany (before the wall came down) the GINI coefficient was very low, income pretty equally distributed. A doctor had little more than a teacher who had little more than a worker. Educational opportunity was high, income opportunity was low.

In the graph above we see that the country with the lowest GINI coefficient is Sweden, not a socialist country but a country with a strong social democrat tradition (I know for most of you it falls all in the same European BS-category ). But as the example of Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) shows, you can become a billionaire over there too.

Now if you're born in one of the colored countries (you don't know whether you're born to a rich or a poor family) which color would you choose?

India is similar to China as well in the gulf of haves and have nots. A tiny percantage of super wealthy millionaires and billionares (all university educated in the UK) and a huge percantage of poor folk. Yet it is transforming itself into a mega economy also!!

My husband was in Chennai a few years ago for several weeks. He was so impressed with the people. However, he was shocked at the juxtaposition of ancient and state-of-the-art, as well as the overwhelming number of poor.