Re: Estimating the surplus\Doug's question

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> joanna bujes wrote:
>
> >Are there other numbers to tell us how much of this is comsumption to
> >physically survive?
>
> There was a Fed study published in 2001
> <http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2001/200121/200121abs.html>
> that argued that it was mostly driven by the upper quintile of the
> distribution, flush from stock market gains (either financially or
> psychologically).
>
> Doug

     O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
     Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
     Allow not nature more than nature needs,
     Man's life's as cheap as beast's: thou art a lady;
     If only to go warm were gorgeous,
     Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
     Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need,--
                King Lear