It's almost funny how willing Angus is to demonstrate how out of touch with reality he is by writing something like this.
Not only has he failed to address any of the points that Stiglits's raised. He built a strawman and set fire to himself.

Angus if wages growth in Australian has been a market force only then why work choices? Why the outcry from when the minimum wage is raised.

The reality is very few industries have the worker in a position to set their wages. Most people are price takers, with the company only paying want it needs to get workers. There are more and more Wal-Mart type situations happening in Australia, their called the working poor.

But it doesn't matter as long as the lawyers can find work in parliament then everything is fine. But perhaps, just perhaps Angus should have a chat with the person who cleans his office in parliament and see what he or she thinks.

When the revolution comes it will not be the cleaners that are put against the wall.

There are certainly things to be said for reducing inequality; that's why we have progressive taxes, after all. But until Stiglitz or someone else is prepared to come up with a figure for the optimum distribution of wealth -- and explain why it IS the optimum -- all we have to deal with is opinions. Nobody knows what the best Gini coefficient for Australia should be, and so any attempts to achieve it are going to involve groping in the dark.

But does anyone imagine that if we could identify it as, say, 0.3, and than actually achieve it, that those at the bottom of the heap and their self-appointed representatives would give up trying to make it lower still?

I don't see that these comments are any less valid for the US than Australia.

Middle-class political activists have battened on inequality as a slogan of the day. The societies they whine about are some of the best in the world from many, many measures. The inequality is dealt with under the social contract by strongly progressive taxation combined with a whole range of means-tested entitlements, so that perhaps 80% of the population pay no net tax when benefit flows are taken into account.

The complaints about inequality are as confected as the faux 'conservative war on women' and the faked-up accusations of 'racism' and 'sexism'against every non-progressive who dares to enter the public sphere. Its just concern trolling, intellectual bullying and ostentatious display of 'superior' morals.

It's garbage.

It does not really matter what Stiglitz and most economists say they
all ignore the effect of high and rising oil prices in eating up GDP.
The market will fix it they say !

The vast majority of them still think the GFC was caused by the
housing crash in the US.

Housing was the first and major symptom.

I think ChrisPer is confusing cause with effect:
"The inequality is dealt with under the social contract by strongly progressive taxation combined with a whole range of means-tested entitlements, so that perhaps 80% of the population pay no net tax when benefit flows are taken into account."
The fact that 20% of Aussies pay tax for all of us must surely be strong indication of the level of inequality?
Reducing that inequality could increase the number of taxpayers.

Forgot to mention, Australia is spending around $40 billion a year plus
refinery charges for petrol and diesel.

Almost an NBN every year.