NYT: Israel has one of the largest gaps between rich and poor in the industrialized world -

[snagglepuss]

a handful of tycoons own 30% of Israel's economy. The glaring income inequality is one of the reasons huge numbers of Israelis have taken to the streets and more protests are planned.

snip

“It is becoming clearer to more and more people that this issue of concentration of wealth has become more important,” said Einat Wilf, a legislator who submitted a bill last year aimed at tackling the issue. “As a result of the protests, there is much more political will to fight it than in the past.”

snip

... the issue has had strong populist resonance. Although Israel’s economy is strong, the data on wealth concentration, published by the Bank of Israel, are unsettling. A small group of family-owned companies control banks, supermarket chains and media, cellphone and insurance companies. They borrow heavily, posing risks for the larger economy and, through a web of interconnecting enterprises, make it harder for others to get into the markets they dominate.

snip

Daniel Doron, who directs the Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress, a pro-market research organization, said he was convinced that the way in which failing state assets were privatized in the 1980s and ’90s led to dangerous consolidation, just as it did in the former Soviet Union and some Arab countries, like Egypt and Syria. Banks, construction and mining companies, all owned by agencies of the state and all in varying degrees of trouble, were sold to those who could afford to buy them.

“It was basically selling assets to cronies,” Mr. Doron said. Once the economy started to pick up in the late 1990s, these companies used their powerful market positions to increase fees sharply, he said, adding, “Today, the whole Israeli economy is built on rapacious elites fleecing consumers.”



Read more at

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/12/world/middleeast/12israel.html?pagewanted=all


__________



The article quotes people involved in Israeli media that given ownership issues they don't and won't cover income inequality in Israel.

[scheming daemons]

1. Are they counting the Palestinians living in Israeli territory? That would be a big part of it.

[Harmony Blue]

2. Probably not

The Israelis have stronger safety nets than we do here in the States, but they are fast approaching the situation we are already in when it come to income inequality.

[Firebrand Gary]

3. This clip tells you exactly what you need know about the Republican/Tea Party.

Daniel Doron, who directs the Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress, a pro-market research organization, said he was convinced that the way in which failing state assets were privatized in the 1980s and ’90s led to dangerous consolidation, just as it did in the former Soviet Union and some Arab countries, like Egypt and Syria. Banks, construction and mining companies, all owned by agencies of the state and all in varying degrees of trouble, were sold to those who could afford to buy them.

“It was basically selling assets to cronies,” Mr. Doron said. Once the economy started to pick up in the late 1990s, these companies used their powerful market positions to increase fees sharply, he said, adding, “Today, the whole Israeli economy is built on rapacious elites fleecing consumers.”

[snagglepuss]

4. Exactly. Repukes and Teatards have seen how very lucrative privatisation

has been in Russia and Israel and can't stop salivating.