By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: September 8, 2006 We are, finally, having a national discussion about inequality, and right-wing commentators are in full panic mode. Statistics, most of them irrelevant or misleading, are flying; straw men are under furious attack. It’s all very confusing — deliberately so. So let me offer ...
09-08-2006, 01:24 AM
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| Banned - Self Imposed  Progressive Philadelphia, PA 
| Your weekly liberal assesment of the economy By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: September 8, 2006 We are, finally, having a national discussion about inequality, and right-wing commentators are in full panic mode. Statistics, most of them irrelevant or misleading, are flying; straw men are under furious attack. It’s all very confusing — deliberately so. So let me offer a few clarifying comments. First, why are we suddenly talking so much about inequality? Not because a few economists decided to make inequality an issue. It’s the public — not progressive pundits — that has been telling pollsters the economy is “only fair” or “poor,” even though the overall growth rate is O.K. by historical standards. Political analysts tried all sorts of explanations for popular discontent with the “Bush boom” — it’s the price of gasoline; no, people are in a bad mood because of Iraq — before finally acknowledging that most Americans think it’s a bad economy because for them, it is. The lion’s share of the benefits from recent economic growth has gone to a small, wealthy minority, while most Americans were worse off in 2005 than they were in 2000. Some conservatives whine that people didn’t complain as much about rising inequality when Bill Clinton was president. But most people were happy with the state of the economy in the late 1990’s, even though the rich were getting much richer, because the middle class and the poor were also making substantial progress. Now the rich are getting richer, but most working Americans are losing ground. Second, notice the amount of time that inequality’s apologists spend attacking a claim nobody is making: that there has been a clear long-term decline in middle-class living standards. Yes, real median family income has risen since the late 1970’s (with the most convincing gains taking place during the Clinton years). But the rise was very small — small enough that other considerations, like increasing economic insecurity, make it unclear whether families are better or worse off. And that’s the point: the United States as a whole has grown a lot richer over the past generation, but the typical American family hasn’t. Third, notice the desperate effort to find some number, any number, to support claims that increasing inequality is just a matter of a rising payoff to education and skill. Conservative commentators tell us about wage gains for one-eyed bearded men with 2.5 years of college, or whatever — and conveniently forget to adjust for inflation. In fact, the data refute any suggestion that education is a guarantee of income gains: once you adjust for inflation, you find that the income of a typical household headed by a college graduate was lower in 2005 than in 2000. More broadly, right-wing commentators would like you to believe that the economy’s winners are a large group, like college graduates or people with agreeable personalities. But the winners’ circle is actually very small. Even households at the 95th percentile — that is, households richer than 19 out of 20 Americans — have seen their real income rise less than 1 percent a year since the late 1970’s. But the income of the richest 1 percent has roughly doubled, and the income of the top 0.01 percent — people with incomes of more than $5 million in 2004 — has risen by a factor of 5. Finally, while we can have an interesting discussion about questions like the role of unions in wage inequality, or the role of lax regulation in exploding C.E.O. pay, there is no question that the policies of the current majority party — a party that has held a much-needed increase in the minimum wage hostage to large tax cuts for giant estates — have relentlessly favored the interests of a tiny, wealthy minority against everyone else. According to new estimates by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, the leading experts on long-term trends in inequality, the effective federal tax rate on the richest 0.01 percent has fallen from about 60 percent in 1980 to about 34 percent today. Meanwhile, the U.S. government — unlike any other government in the advanced world — does nothing as more and more working families find themselves unable to obtain health insurance. The good news is that these concerns are finally breaking through into our political discourse. I’m sure that the usual suspects will come up with further efforts to confuse the issue. I say, bring ’em on: we’ve got the arguments, and the facts, to win this debate. (No Link, Times Select article [I paid and you didn't  ])^^^ Makes the case I couldn't make (he's a professor of economics at Princeton and a worldwide respected scholar of economics) Basically, things are going worse than Bush talking point would have us believe, they are digging through any numbers they can find to show us how we are "improving" as a whole rather than just the rich and our GDP The rich get richer and the poor get poorer...I know this forum, full of people with nice jobs or wonderful student oppurtunities, is not the place for a populist argument, but across the country people are becoming less and less happy with our situation, eventually those GOP talking points will wear off on those who don't take politics as a daily medicine (vast majority of americans) and that, coupled with Hispanic growth, will fuel the rise of a new coalition, the kind that gave the Democrats control of Congress for roughly 60 years | ||||
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09-08-2006, 02:27 AM
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| Common Sense Conservative  Realist
| Interesting..regardless of what I hear about the "great economy," my own observation is that college grads are having a pretty hard time finding work, and generally speaking, taking much, much longer to get to the point where they'd be comfortable having a family; whereas it seems like long ago, people would be completely financially independent and capable of supporting a family with relative ease. I'm in Texas and it seems a shitload of people I knew in college are now working as landmen (oil industry), while a shitload of others are working in commercial real estate. Both of these strike me as local, so I'm curious what it's like in other areas. Are there any fields that everyone and his brother out of college seems to be jumping into? | ||||
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09-08-2006, 08:10 AM
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| Banned  Conservative Government is another way to say Better Than You
| Originally Posted by SpicyMcVoodoo business seems to be hoppin 
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09-08-2006, 08:12 AM
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| Banned Conservative Government is another way to say Better Than You
| is this the same krugman that said this:
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09-08-2006, 09:13 AM
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| Never, never, never give up  Conservative Party High Point, NC
| Hey, even though every indicator says the economy is doing well, and has been for a very long time Liberals HAVE to say it's not. It's in their own best interest. Remember kids: Good news for America, is bad news for Liberals. | ||||
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09-08-2006, 09:17 AM
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| Never, never, never give up Conservative Party High Point, NC
| Oh, we also can't forget that this man is DESPERATELY wanting a job when/if a Dem wins the White House. He's just building up his resume.
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09-08-2006, 09:48 AM
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| Administrator  libertarian Oklahoma
| Originally Posted by ballz2wallz
 really? | ||||
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09-08-2006, 09:55 AM
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| Banned Conservative Government is another way to say Better Than You
| Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95 yah, everyone i know that graduates with a business degree picks up a job on wall street making 150k straight outta college. maybe i'm just surrounded by the better of the mix, but still, i've seen no problems with anybody i know getting jobs. i know 23 yr olds making close to 200k, and i hate it.
 but good for them. i constantly tell myself i went into the wrong field. | ||||
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09-08-2006, 09:57 AM
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| helluo librorum The Lab Moderator  Humanist Chicago Suburbs
| Originally Posted by Stylerod I think i'm going to believe the professor of economics at princton over you.
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09-08-2006, 09:58 AM
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| helluo librorum The Lab Moderator Humanist Chicago Suburbs
| Originally Posted by ballz2wallz
oh my god..... | ||||
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09-08-2006, 09:58 AM
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| Banned Conservative Government is another way to say Better Than You
| Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent i bet you believed him when he was sure the bush admin was behind the plame leak too...or the MANY other things he's wrong on
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09-08-2006, 09:58 AM
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| Banned Conservative Government is another way to say Better Than You
| Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent i don't see what's so funny. please enlighten me.
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09-08-2006, 10:00 AM
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| helluo librorum The Lab Moderator Humanist Chicago Suburbs
| Originally Posted by Stylerod Great, so we can totally discount what every expert on everything has to say since we know that the government may hire them.
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09-08-2006, 10:01 AM
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| helluo librorum The Lab Moderator Humanist Chicago Suburbs
| Originally Posted by ballz2wallz What the fuck does an economics professor have to do with plame?
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09-08-2006, 10:01 AM
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| Administrator libertarian Oklahoma
| Originally Posted by ballz2wallz WTF? I graduated from one of the best public business schools in the country 15 months ago and started at 47k + bonuses...only two others in my class started at more, I had the highest offer but it was in cali at 64k/yr.
These guys have masters degrees from harvard or something? | ||||
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09-08-2006, 10:01 AM
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| Banned Conservative Government is another way to say Better Than You
| Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent you know, take what this 'expert' says with a grain of salt like you do the weather 'experts'
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09-08-2006, 10:01 AM
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| Dirty Liberal  Democrat South Jersey
| Originally Posted by Stylerod Except for the fact that the real buying power of the average american family has been decreasing since the 1970's..
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09-08-2006, 10:02 AM
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| Banned Conservative Government is another way to say Better Than You
| Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95 BA from Vanderbilt
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09-08-2006, 10:02 AM
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| helluo librorum The Lab Moderator Humanist Chicago Suburbs
| Originally Posted by ballz2wallz You think everyone who gets a buisness degree walks out of school and into a $150k job.
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09-08-2006, 10:03 AM
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| Administrator |
