I found a Gini.

One definition of communism states that all property is not individually held, but is rather held by the community (hence the name) or the state. Not sure how those purchases of yacht makers and luxury clothing outlets are benefiting the community now, especially with the difficulty mentioned in offloading them, but that's a petty argument. Maybe numbers will be a less charged comparison than words are.

They're not. I looked up the Gini numbers for three countries, which ranks economic inequality from 0 (equality) to 1 (inequality). These are the nearest comparable years I could find between the sources I used for these numbers.

One country had values of .45 in 1995, .55 in 2002, .422 in 2012, and 39.7 in 2013.

Another had .402 in 1994, .405 in 2004, .41 in 2013, and .415 in 2016.

The third had .477 in 2000, .466 in 2004, .465 in 2012, and .444 in 2015.

One source from a collaboration between the first two countries shows values of .73 in 2012 and .72 in 2013. Another source has a graph that shows the rise in the Gini numbers of the first are the highest in its region. Of course I ask the question of who gains what, considering the discrepancies - does one country or another look to improve its standing or conceal its flaws on the basis of these numbers? Is the difference because of access to information that's restricted under one regime, or because of adjustments in criteria that cause it to favor another? Can the numbers be duplicated by other researchers and not merely quoted from one organization, however lofty?

I'm inclined to look at the cultures attached to these countries to try and make some sense of the math. I can at least feel sorry for a drunk, albeit a drunk who pays to pray to aliens as well as for unearned university degrees, and is adept at marketing stints in drug rehab as an expected, if unpleasant, rite of passage to those who still admire them and their efforts to keep a smile on, chemically or surgically induced or otherwise.

I'm not inclined to feel the same for one who is fully aware of the choice to take on the worst qualities of a geopolitical rival; whose state media isn't above echoing some discordant sophomoric argument from wherever they read it last; whose actions to forward its own interests, from waste management and manufacturing pollution to overseas purchases, mirror those it seeks to criticize; and I wonder at a system that has access to information on the development of its rival and repeats the rival's mistakes with a recognizable arrogance. (Congratulations on the "wins" in those games, by the way.)

The roast chicken is looking considerably better than these reruns, humans.