Re: alternate universe on income inequality

["Max B. Sawicky" <sawicky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

That Arnold is such a card.  He's actually pretty smart, but

way out to lunch.  Basically he says the social question,

as Bismarck might say, has been solved.  He wrote once

that anyone who needs a job can get trained as a med

therapist and make $80K a year.  Or that since more

people have microwave ovens now than, duh, before the

advent of MW ovens, everyone is so much better off.

(Same argument made by Cox and Alm in their stupid

book.)

 

On the table, from what I can see Arnold uses the income

boundaries between quintiles for 1967 or whatever it was.

So real income growth would move people up through the

old brackets.  Income growth partly due to women entering

the workforce, by the way.  Daniel nails it pretty well,

methinks.

 

As the illustrious Comrade  Henwood notes in his fine book,

the fact that real income growth had no such impact on

poverty -- itself based on a real absolute income standard --

is noteworthy.  It would be interesting to see how DD's

calculations worked for the bottom decile, rather than

quintile.

 

More broadly, no doubt a peasant in the Dark Ages was

better off than some hairy dude being chased by 'raptors in

the Jurassic Era.  So chalk one up for feudalism.

 

mbs

 

---

From: PEN-L list [mailto:PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joel Blau
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 6:15 PM
To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: alternate universe on income inequality

Yes, but what specifically is wrong with the table showing that the 
percentage of people in bottom two quintiles has declined? I can't figure out 
what they've done to invert virtually everyone else's conclusions.

Joel 
Blau

Devine, James wrote:
> on the question of the income distribution being increasingly unequal, I'd assume that the H foundation was _a priori_ wrong. Maybe on some other subject, they're like a stopped clock, right twice a day. I can't think of what subject that is. 
>
> The problem with that foundation is their values -- which bias their research -- and the money which pays them to bias that research. It's like expecting reasonable research out of the Tobacco Institute. 
>
> Don't get me wrong. Some of my best friends are ultra-right-wing reactionary scum... 
>
> Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine 
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: PEN-L list [mailto:PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of David B.
> > Shemano
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 2:14 PM
> > To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: Re: [PEN-L] alternate universe on income inequality
> >
> >
> > Michael Perelman writes:
> >
> > > > I first saw the Kling article on the Heritage Fdn. site.  
> > Nuff said.
> >
> > Why "Nuff said?"  Is the Heritage Foundation a priori always 
> > wrong?  I bet if they published something you agreed with, 
> > you would go around emphasizing how even the Heritage 
> > Foundation agrees with you, so you must be right.
> >
> > David Shemano