Reply #3: reminds me of an incident in graduate school [View All]

One of my fellow students, a member of a Bavarian banking family. He left in the middle of a semester to go "help the former Soviet bloc transition to capitalist economies". Turns out they all went through shock therapy, but at least they are still democracies and now members of the EU. According to the CIA factbook, Poland is still more equal than the US. Their lowest 10% has 3.1% of the income, compared to 1.9% here and their highest 10% has 27% compared to 29.9% here.

I was also amazed as I looked at the per capita GDP list on wikipedia at how wealthy Norway is. Their per capita GDP is over $70,000! No wonder they can afford such awesome health care. USA's of $45,000 is amazing to me as well, especially since nobody I know is that wealthy. My siblings are doing pretty well, but since they are families of 4, they would need an income of $180,000 just to be average. Russia, otoh, seems to be at almost 3rd world GDP, perhaps even worse than they were in 1989. Wiki mentions that Poland was the first Eastern Bloc country to surpass 1989 GDP levels after their painful 'reforms' but they do not say when that happened. 1994? 2002?