I had a discussion with an economics professor about the growing inequality of American society last year. My theme in that conversation was that the United States, like Brazil, is embarking on a path of becoming a nation of haves and have-nots. The Gini coefficient — familiar to economics students — is a widely quoted measure of the inequality in a nation. A value of zero represents a perfectly equitable society, whereas a value of one describes an economy in which one person owns all the resources. Japan and the Scandinavian countries are the world's most income-equitable countries. They have income Ginis of about 0.25. On the other hand, Brazil's figure is 0.61. Closer to home, Canada has an income Gini of 0.32, while here in this country it was 0.41 when last measured in 1998 and it is growing quickly. By most estimates, this number now probably stands close to 0.45. But all these numbers are really abstract. What exactly does it mean for a country to have a Gini of .25 as opposed to .61? To get a sense of the disparity between rich and poor, in Japan the richest 10 percent earns five times as much as…
