Discovery Discussion Debate

Economic Inequality - Global

How big is too big? How wide is too wide? Economic inequality is not a new problem. What is new is the idea that is now affecting those countries who have tried to balance social welfare with bits and pieces of democracy, which is demanded by the populace. Dr. Paul R. Friesen

Discovery Discussion Debate

Title:

For richer, for poorer

Growing inequality is one of the biggest social, economic and political challenges of our time. Discover Ideas
( Outline)

Discuss the Story

(3 Question Levels)
Create Opinions

Economic Inequality
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Discovery Discussion Debate Before you start

Look through the idea, front to back. The ideas in red are just ideas. Students should add to these. There is an outline page for Discovery. There are graphic organizer pages for the Discussion and Debate sections. The reason for the worksheets, at the end of the book, is to help you work systematically through the material. Worksheets are helpers and can be a distraction from the rhythm and sequence in your teaching. By putting them at the end they become support pages versus places to stop, giving a smoother presentation.

Discovery
In the beginning of each story you will have a few questions to discover what you know, or think you know about a story. The Title of the article/ story will be given and you will be asked to discover the story by asking good questions. In the second part of discovery you will be asked to find words which you do not know. Some of these may be highlighted already in bold. Definitions will follow to help you discover what the writer is talking about. Discovery will help you form a plan for the discussion and debate.

Discussion
Discussion is not a debate, though it can quickly become one if there are strong opposing ideas in the group. Discussion can be a part of the discovery before you read the story. It may also come after to discuss the ideas of the story. Sometimes a persons views may change after reading the article, which is a good way to start a discussion. Discussion is interaction without a lot of structure. Be careful not to confuse discussion with argument. Debate is about argument. Discussion is about sharing your views and interacting with others who want to expand or give a differing viewpoint.

Debate
Debate is a structured idea. It means that only one person speaks in turn, and with a specific point to address. It also has a time limit, so the speaker must be precise in their argument. In a debate the key is to listen and be prepared to oppose the other teams ideas. It takes research, a lot of work, and patience. In the following story we want to begin with discovery ideas. What can you know from a title, if you dont know about the topic?

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Discovery Discussion Debate

In discovery you will form ideas to create basics ideas for an outline. In discussion you will ask questions to help you build an outline for your viewpoint. In debate you will separate the outline into two sections, for and against. At each stage you will be able to use what you have learned before, to expand on your ideas and understand both sides of the issue.

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Discovery Discussion Debate

Discovery
Title: For richer, for poorer
Growing inequality is one of the biggest social, economic and political challenges of our time.

What can you know from the title? . . . . . ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________

What do I know about this topic? . __________________________________________ . __________________________________________ . __________________________________________ . __________________________________________ What would make me depressed? . __________________________________________ . __________________________________________ . __________________________________________ . __________________________________________ What do you think is a good model to close the economic gap? ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________
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Discovery Discussion Debate

. Now read the story. . Create an outline of the story / paragraphs. . There is a list of words on the side for you to find. . After you have found the words, look in the definitions, which follow the story. . Discover the words you dont know.

Economic Inequality
For richer, for poorer http://www.economist.com/node/21564414
Growing inequality is one of the biggest social, economic and political challenges of our time. But it is not inevitable, says Zanny Minton Beddoes Oct 13th 2012

In 1889, at the height of Americas first Gilded Age, George Vanderbilt II, grandson of the original railway magnate, set out to build a country estate, in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. He hired the most prominent architect of the time, toured the chateaux of the Loire for inspiration, laid a railway to bring in limestone from Indiana and employed more than 1,000 labourers. Six years later Biltmore was completed. With 250 rooms spread over 175,000 square feet (16,000 square metres), the mansion was 300 times bigger than the average dwelling of its day. It had central heating, an indoor swimming pool, a bowling alley, lifts and an intercom system at a time when most American homes had neither electricity nor indoor plumbing. A bit over a century later, Americas second Gilded Age has nothing qui te like the Vanderbilt extravaganza. Bill Gatess home, near Seattle, is full of hightech gizmos, but, at 66,000 square feet, it is a mere 30 times bigger than the average modern American home. Disparities in wealth are less visible in Americans everyday lives today than they were a century ago. Even poor people have televisions, air conditioners and cars. But appearances deceive. The democratisation of living standards has masked a dramatic concentration of incomes over the past 30 years, on a scale that matches, or even exceeds, the first Gilded Age. Including capital gains, the share of national income going to the richest 1% of Americans has doubled since 1980, from 10% to 20%, roughly where it was a century ago. Even more striking, the share going to the top 0.01%some 16,000 families with an average income of $24m
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Discovery Discussion Debate

has quadrupled, from just over 1% to almost 5%. That is a bigger slice of the national pie than the top 0.01% received 100 years ago. This is an extraordinary development, and it is not confined to America. Many countries, including Britain, Canada, China, India and even egalitarian Sweden, have seen a rise in the share of national income taken by the top 1%. The numbers of the ultra-wealthy have soared around the globe. The concentration of wealth at the very top is part of a much broader rise in disparities all along the income distribution. The best-known way of measuring inequality is the Gini coefficient, named after an Italian statistician called Corrado Gini. It aggregates the gaps between peoples incomes into a single measure. If everyone in a group has the same income, the Gini coefficient is 0; if all income goes to one person, it is 1. The level of inequality differs widely around the world. Emerging economies are more unequal than rich ones. Scandinavian countries have the smallest income disparities, with a Gini coefficient for disposable income of around 0.25. At the other end of the spectrum the worlds most unequal, such as South Africa, register Ginis of around 0.6. Income gaps have also changed to varying degrees. Americas Gini for disposable income is up by almost 30% since 1980, to 0.39. Swedens is up by a quarter, to 0.24. Chinas has risen by around 50% to 0.42 (and by some measures to 0.48). The biggest exception to the general upward trend is Latin America, long the worlds most unequal continent, where Gini coefficients have fallen sharply over the past ten years. But the majority of the people on the planet live in countries where income disparities are bigger than they were a generation ago. That does not mean the world as a whole has become more unequal. Global inequalitythe income gaps between all people on the planethas begun to fall as poorer countries catch up with richer ones. Two French economists, Franois Bourguignon and Christian Morrisson, have calculated a global Gini that measures the scale of income disparities among everyone in the world. Their index shows that global inequality rose in the 19th and 20th centuries because richer economies, on average, grew faster than poorer ones. Recently that pattern has reversed and global inequality has started to fall even as inequality within many countries has risen. By that measure, the
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Discovery Discussion Debate

planet as a whole is becoming a fairer place. But in a world of nation states it is inequality within countries that has political salience, and this special report will focus on that. From U to N The widening of income gaps is a reversal of the pattern in much of the 20th century, when inequality narrowed in many countries. That narrowing seemed so inevitable that Simon Kuznets, a Belarusian-born Harvard economist, in 1955 famously described the relationship between inequality and prosperity as an upside-down U. According to the Kuznets curve, inequality rises in the early stages of industrialisation as people leave the land, become more productive and earn more in factories. Once industrialisation is complete and better-educated citizens demand redistribution from their government, it declines again. Until 1980 this prediction appeared to have been vindicated. But the past 30 years have put paid to the Kuznets curve, at least in advanced economies. These days the inverted U has turned into something closer to an italicised N, with the final stroke pointing menacingly upwards. That changed after the crash. The bank rescues shone a spotlight on the unfairness of a system in which affluent bankers were bailed out whereas ordinary folk lost their houses and jobs. And in todays sluggish economies, more inequality often means that people at the bottom and even in the middle of the income distribution are falling behind not just in relative but also in absolute terms. Even in more buoyant emerging economies, inequality is a growing worry. Indias government is under fire for the lack of inclusive growth and for cronyism that has enriched insiders, evident from dubious mobile-phonespectrum auctions and dodgy mining deals. Chinas leaders fear that growing disparities will cause social unrest. Wen Jiabao, the outgoing prime minister, has long pushed for a harmonious society. Many economists, too, now worry that widening income disparities may have damaging side-effects. In theory, inequality has an ambiguous relationship with prosperity. It can boost growth, because richer folk save and invest more and because people work harder in response to incentives. But big income gaps can also be inefficient, because they can bar talented poor people from access to education or feed resentment that results in growth-destroying populist policies.

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Discovery Discussion Debate

The mainstream consensus has long been that a growing economy raises all boats, to much better effect than incentive-dulling redistribution. Robert Lucas, a Nobel prize-winner, epitomised the orthodoxy when he wrote in 2003 that of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the most seductive andpoisonous is to focus on questions of distribution. The widening gaps within many countries are beginning to worry even the plutocrats. A survey for the World Economic Forum meeting at Davos pointed to inequality as the most pressing problem of the coming decade (alongside fiscal imbalances). In all sections of society, there is growing agreement that the world is becoming more unequal, and that todays disparities and their likely trajectory are dangerous. Not so fast That is too simplistic. Inequality, as measured by Gini coefficients, is simply a snapshot of outcomes. It does not tell you why those gaps have opened up or what the trend is over time. And like any snapshot, the picture can be misleading. Income gaps can arise for good reasons (such as when people are rewarded for productive work) or for bad ones (if poorer children do not get the same opportunities as richer ones). Equally, inequality of outcomes might be acceptable if the gaps are between young people and older folk, so may shrink over time. But in societies without this sort of mobility a high Gini is troubling. Some societies are more concerned about equality of opportunity, others more about equality of outcome. Europeans tend to be more egalitarian, believing that in a fair society there should be no big income gaps. Americans and Chinese put more emphasis on equality of opportunity. Provided people can move up the social ladder, they believe a society with wide income gaps can still be fair. Whatever peoples preferences, static measures of income gaps tell only half the story. Despite the lack of nuance, todays debate over inequality will have important consequences. The unstable history of Latin America, long the continent with the biggest income gaps, suggests that countries run by entrenched wealthy elites do not do very well. Yet the 20th centurys focus on redistribution brought its own problems. Too often high-tax welfare states turned out to be inefficient and unsustainable. Government cures for inequality have sometimes been worse than the disease itself.

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Discovery Discussion Debate Vocabulary Check

Find the colored words. Write a definition you can discover from the story if possible. __________ 1. ______________________________________________________ __________ 2. ______________________________________________________ __________ 3. ______________________________________________________ __________ 4. ______________________________________________________ __________ 5. ______________________________________________________ __________ 6. ______________________________________________________ __________ 7. ______________________________________________________ __________ 8. ______________________________________________________ __________ 9. ______________________________________________________ ___________ 10. ______________________________________________________ __________ 11. ______________________________________________________ __________ 12. ______________________________________________________ __________ 13. ______________________________________________________ __________ 14. ______________________________________________________ __________ 15. ______________________________________________________ __________ 16. ______________________________________________________ __________ 17. ______________________________________________________ __________ 18. ______________________________________________________ __________ 19. ______________________________________________________ __________ 20. ______________________________________________________ __________ 21. ______________________________________________________ __________ 22. ______________________________________________________
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Discovery Discussion Debate Discovery

What do I know about this topic?

List at least four (4) different ideas you have found in this story.

. __________________________________________ . __________________________________________ . __________________________________________ . __________________________________________

Use them when you make your outline.

Discussion
Level I . Who is Gini? . Why does the U become an N? . Why is the income gap a problem in China? Level II . Why does moving to the city create problems? . Can we redistribute money globally so all nations are equal? Explain. . How much money is too much? . Why do the rich not want to help more? Explain. Level III . If we raise the minimum wage, will the economic gap lessen? Explain. . Should we limit profits to help with the global economic disparity? . What is a good solution to controlling the growth of the super-rich? You now have everything you need to fill out your outline. Look at your answers, under Discussion, and fill it out to reflect the new ideas. These new ideas will help you form your debate ideas better.

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Discovery Discussion Debate

In debate you will have a statement not a question. You have to react to the statement with facts, not opinions. Discussions are based a lot on opinions and answer questions. This is where these two ideas, though similar, are different. Debate is about facts and statements. When you make a statement, from a story, you must consider what the core issue is. If you have made a good outline, you will have this already discovered. This story is from economics. The core issue could be; social economic political culture In todays world the topics could range from; social responsibility government control people power democracy the super-rich economics

These are all good argument that you would want to research for your argument, or write in your essay. Build the argument starting from Why? Once you have determined the Why? you can find facts to support your idea.

Countries with too many super-rich have a wider economic gap. Therefore the government should limit the number rich people. Politicians should be paid at the lowest common wage to help distribute the tax income more equally. Money fuels inequality. The best solution is to give everything equal value. Before you start choose one of the above statements to focus on. Choose a for or against position. Research to find FACTS for your position. List the facts.
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Discovery Discussion Debate

Write out your argument in a long paragraph format. Include the opposite position in your writing.

You need to write out both sides so you can understand the
other sides argument.

Discovery Outline
Main topic ________________________ Find one (1) key idea in each paragraph. (3-5 words) Paragraph 1 ______________________________ Paragraph 2 ______________________________ Paragraph 3 ______________________________ Paragraph 4 ______________________________ Paragraph 5 ______________________________ Write two things about the main paragraph idea. Paragraph 1 ______________________________ A. ______________________________ B. ______________________________ Paragraph 2 ______________________________ A. ______________________________ B. ______________________________ Paragraph 3 ______________________________ A. ______________________________ B. ______________________________ Paragraph 4 ______________________________ A. ______________________________ B. ______________________________ Paragraph 5 ______________________________ A. ______________________________ B. ______________________________ In the introduction you use the 5 paragraph ideas to communicate the order of your argument/ essay. In the conclusion you repeat what you have said about the points of each paragraph.
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Discovery Discussion Debate

Graphic Organization ~ Main topic = 5 Paragraph Topics

paragraph 1 ____________ ____________ ____________ ____________ paragraph 5 ____________ ____________ ____________ ____________ paragraph 2 ____________ ____________ ____________ ____________

Main topic

paragraph 4 ____________ ____________ ____________ ____________

paragraph 3 ____________ ____________ ____________ ____________

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Discovery Discussion Debate

Discussion Graphic ~ Is this phenomenon a problem / becoming a problem in todays society? Answer ~ I think economic inequality is (a / becoming a) problem because

Problem / Economic Inequality

The super-rich are the problem. We should lcap peoples bank accounts and holdings.

Money is the fuel of economic inequality. We should give everything equal value .

Society shold focus on the value of creativity, not profit. Education should be the reward for creativity.

Respond

Respond

Respond

Respond

Respond

Respond

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Discovery Discussion Debate

graphic ~ choose one statement from the above. Write it here _____________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ To make your argument you should understand that they are connected. In the next two charts (1) list your argument facts and ideas, (2) show how your argument connects to both the center point and the other points. list

Facts
For 1 Against

Add more if needed

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Discovery Discussion Debate

graphic ~ choose one statement from the above. list

If this -- then

If this -- then

Write your statement position here. ________________________________________ ________________________________________ ________________________________________ ______________________________

If this -- then

If this -- then

If this -- then

Now start the

As a team choose which points they will speak about. Each person will listen for the opposite point and create a new response to what the other person has said. A: point 1 B: responds to the point and give a new point. C: responds to B and give a new point. After all persons have spoken each person can respond to any point given by the opposite team, or add more points from their team which will need responding to from the opposite team.

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Discovery Discussion Debate

Dear Teacher/ Student, After you have finished this please look for more in this series to challenge yourself. This is only part of a curriculum. It starts with Dr. Roys Everything Grammar. Dr. Roys Everything Grammar Volumes I and II will develop the skills of story and essay writing, while at the same time building a foundation in grammar. The repetition of grammar, combined with reason and speaking, culminating in a story or essay will prepare students for this series. Going beyond this book is a book to expand the outlines into essays. Good essays are able to build and defend an argument. Building a structure for debate will springboard off this skill set.

Dr. Paul R. Friesen

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