This chart is from a paper called "Building a Better America One Wealth Quintile at a Time" by Dan Ariely and Michael I. Norton.

The top row shows the actual distribution of wealth in America. The richest 20 percent, represented by that blue line, has about 85 percent of the wealth. The next richest 20 percent, represented by that red line, has about 10 percent of the wealth. And the remaining three-fifths of America shares a tiny sliver of the country's wealth.

Below that, the "Estimated" rows show how different groups think wealth is distributed. As you can see, in people's misinformed minds things are much more equitable.

Matt Yglesias explains what's interesting here:

What’s interesting here is the extent to which the public vastly overestimates the prosperity of lower-income Americans. The public thinks the 4th quintile has more money than the median quintile actually has. And the public thinks the 5th quintile has vastly more wealth than it really has.

You can easily see how this could have a giant distorting effect on our politics. Poor Americans are simply much, much, much needier than people realize and this is naturally going to lead to an undue slighting of their interests.

Indeed. It's fine if reasonable people have different ideas about whether we should extend the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $250,000. Or think estate taxes are unfair. But when we have those debates, it's critical that everyone has a clear understanding of how things really are. We're becoming a plutocracy.

 

Here's a look at the various ways in which we subsidize energy (the chart is based on this paper from the Environmental Law Institute). As you can see, the tax breaks for traditional fossil fuels, in the bottom left quadrant, are just massive. The result? The cost of coal and oil are artificially cheap, meaning we use them more, and the companies that extract and sell them reap absurd profits. Is there any neoliberal economic defense for this or is it simply an unfair product of industry lobbying? Anyone know?

As far as the graph goes, I would like to see an animated version that shows how these subsidies have changed over time. The renewable energy subsidies have certainly grown, but how quickly? Have the tax breaks for traditional fossil fuels declined at all?

Green roofs are a good idea. Here's an abridged list of their benefits: lowering heating and cooling costs; mitigating the urban heat island effect; extending the life of a roof; storm water management; and turning carbon dioxide into good, old oxygen.

And for new buildings in Copenhagen, they're mandatory as of last month.

Copenhagen has become the first Scandanavian city to adopt a policy that requires green roofs for all new buildings with roof slopes of less than 30 degrees. Copenhagen presently has 20,000 square meters (over 215,000 square feet) of flat roofs. It is hoped that as much as 5,000 square meters of new development each year will be covered with vegetation.

This is part of Copenhagen's effort to become "the world's first carbon neurtral capital by 2025," and unlike a lot of similar targets and visions, it seems like it's being taken seriously.