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>Could you define "middle class", and perhaps explain how income inequality "destroys" it? It's political economy 101. I don't understand your bizarro counter-

by batista 14y ago

>Could you define "middle class", and perhaps explain how income inequality "destroys" it? It's political economy 101. I don't understand your bizarro counter-arguments. Take the first for example: >Taking a typical relative definition, if the middle class is [50-X%, 50+X%], then by definition the middle class always makes up 2X% of the nation and nothing can destroy it. It cannot destroy the existence of the category named "middle class", but it can very much destroy its living conditions. It's not just being in the 50%+-X range, it's also what that range represents in purchase power. >If you take an absolute definition of middle class (i.e., middle class = home with X ft^2/person, tv, car, refrigerator), then inequality is pretty much unrelated to how many people are middle class. Only in a bizarro world where the wealth is magically readjusted to account for inequality. In the real world this inequality is caused by wealth moving from the middle to the upper classes. For example, a company moves its factories to China. The middle class families making a living around the US factory and the nearby city are devastated, but the company executives get even richer because of the higher margins.

yummyfajitas 14y ago
It's not just being in the 50%+-X range, it's also what that range represents in purchase power. In the US, the purchasing power of that range has dramatically increased over the years. We live in bigger houses, consume better medicine, more food, more education, more and better electronics and entertainment, etc. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a single category in which contemporary Americans have less than 1970's Americans, for any reasonable value of x. If you dispute this, go ahead and find that single category. Only in a bizarro world where the wealth is magically readjusted to account for inequality. In the real world this inequality is caused by wealth moving from the middle to the upper classes. Are you seriously calling a world of economic growth and technological process "bizarro world"? We have become vastly wealthier than we were at any historical period, ignoring short term fluctuations (e.g., recessions). In the 1970s, the bottom 11% didn't have flush toilets. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=372 http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cf... For example, a company moves its factories to China. The middle class families making a living around the US factory and the nearby city are devastated, but the company executives get even richer because of the higher margins. Hahaha! Now I know you are writing a parody of something - first complaining about inequality, then complaining about wages becoming more equal.
- bonaldi 14y ago
  You are making large omissions of quality when claiming things like "more" food and "more" education. America's educational rankings are descending rapidly. More HFCS is not more cane sugar. "go ahead and find that single category." Income expectations for their offspring are lower now for contemporary Americans than 1970s Americans. If you want historical comparisons, you will be hard pressed to find a single successful society that has maintained income equality at anything like current US levels without collapse, economic devastation or massive human rights violations. Which of those three are acceptable in the quest to be the richest-ever?
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    Income expectations for their offspring are lower now for contemporary Americans than 1970s Americans. No, income expectations for the offspring of Americans are far higher than they were in the 1970s. However, when you include immigrants and their children in the mix, the numbers appear disproportionately low. This is due entirely to Simpson's paradox. http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/immigrants_simpsons_paradox_great_stagnation.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/immigrants_simpsons_p...
    - bonaldi 14y ago
      "However, when you include immigrants and their children in the mix, the numbers appear disproportionately low." Your post doesn't adjust for immigration levels. In particular, income stagnation was not similar at previous periods when immigration was at comparable or higher levels.
- batista 14y ago
  >In the US, the purchasing power of that range has dramatically increased over the years. We live in bigger houses, consume better medicine, more food, more education, more and better electronics and entertainment, etc. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a single category in which contemporary Americans have less than 1970's Americans, for any reasonable value of x. If you dispute this, go ahead and find that single category. This conflates technological and process improvements (e.g. a CPU with 100 times an CPU 's PC power can now be made with 1/1000 of the money) with increases in actual purchasing power. This also forgets that wealth is relative. A piss-poor Mississippi kid might now have a mobile phone, which in 1980 it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to have (if it was even possible). That doesn't mean the kid is richer than Gordon Gecko, it just means that the scale has changed. See this for example: American men in their 30s are earning less than their father's generation did (…) The study was produced by a handful of politically diverse think tanks including the Pew Charitable Trusts, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Urban Institute. It looked at income levels of American men in their 30s, which can be a good indicator of lifetime income. (…) Relying on Census Bureau figures, the study's authors found that after adjusting for inflation, men in their 30s in 2004 had a median income of about $35,000 per year, for a 12 percent drop compared with $40,000 per year for men in the same age group in 1974. (cnn.com) See here for more: http://www.scribd.com/doc/70425671/Economic-Mobility http://www.scribd.com/doc/70425671/Economic-Mobility >>Only in a bizarro world where the wealth is magically readjusted to account for inequality. In the real world this inequality is caused by wealth moving from the middle to the upper classes. Are you seriously calling a world of economic growth and technological process "bizarro world"? No, what I call bizarro world is that place you describe where "inequality is pretty much unrelated to how many people are middle class". >We have become vastly wealthier than we were at any historical period, ignoring short term fluctuations (e.g., recessions). In the 1970s, the bottom 11% didn't have flush toilets. Again, conflating technological and manufacturing progress (and cheaper prices for certain products) with wealth. From Wikipedia: "12.3% fell below the federal poverty threshold and the bottom 20% earned less than $19,178". And this "less than $20K annual", is for household incomes, not personal. >Hahaha! Now I know you are writing a parody of something - first complaining about inequality, then complaining about wages becoming more equal. Yes, it must be "hahaha"-level funny for all the families in foreclosures, the homeless, the dying communities with an industry in decline, et al. And, no, I'm not complaing about "wages becoming more equal", I'm complaining about wages entering a race to the bottom. If the chinese made $1/hour and US workers made $20/hour, getting the chinese to $2/hour and the US workers to $5/hour is not the kind of equality we were discussing. How about raising Chinese wages WITHOUT fucking the american middle class over (and eventually the Chinese too, as it both caps their salaries and kills their market)?

by batista 14y ago

yummyfajitas 14y ago

It's not just being in the 50%+-X range, it's also what that range represents in purchase power. In the US, the purchasing power of that range has dramatically increased over the years. We live in bigger houses, consume better medicine, more food, more education, more and better electronics and entertainment, etc. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a single category in which contemporary Americans have less than 1970's Americans, for any reasonable value of x. If you dispute this, go ahead and find that single category. Only in a bizarro world where the wealth is magically readjusted to account for inequality. In the real world this inequality is caused by wealth moving from the middle to the upper classes. Are you seriously calling a world of economic growth and technological process "bizarro world"? We have become vastly wealthier than we were at any historical period, ignoring short term fluctuations (e.g., recessions). In the 1970s, the bottom 11% didn't have flush toilets. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=372 http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cf... For example, a company moves its factories to China. The middle class families making a living around the US factory and the nearby city are devastated, but the company executives get even richer because of the higher margins. Hahaha! Now I know you are writing a parody of something - first complaining about inequality, then complaining about wages becoming more equal.

bonaldi 14y ago
You are making large omissions of quality when claiming things like "more" food and "more" education. America's educational rankings are descending rapidly. More HFCS is not more cane sugar. "go ahead and find that single category." Income expectations for their offspring are lower now for contemporary Americans than 1970s Americans. If you want historical comparisons, you will be hard pressed to find a single successful society that has maintained income equality at anything like current US levels without collapse, economic devastation or massive human rights violations. Which of those three are acceptable in the quest to be the richest-ever?
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  Income expectations for their offspring are lower now for contemporary Americans than 1970s Americans. No, income expectations for the offspring of Americans are far higher than they were in the 1970s. However, when you include immigrants and their children in the mix, the numbers appear disproportionately low. This is due entirely to Simpson's paradox. http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/immigrants_simpsons_paradox_great_stagnation.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/immigrants_simpsons_p...
  - bonaldi 14y ago
    "However, when you include immigrants and their children in the mix, the numbers appear disproportionately low." Your post doesn't adjust for immigration levels. In particular, income stagnation was not similar at previous periods when immigration was at comparable or higher levels.
batista 14y ago
>In the US, the purchasing power of that range has dramatically increased over the years. We live in bigger houses, consume better medicine, more food, more education, more and better electronics and entertainment, etc. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a single category in which contemporary Americans have less than 1970's Americans, for any reasonable value of x. If you dispute this, go ahead and find that single category. This conflates technological and process improvements (e.g. a CPU with 100 times an CPU 's PC power can now be made with 1/1000 of the money) with increases in actual purchasing power. This also forgets that wealth is relative. A piss-poor Mississippi kid might now have a mobile phone, which in 1980 it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to have (if it was even possible). That doesn't mean the kid is richer than Gordon Gecko, it just means that the scale has changed. See this for example: American men in their 30s are earning less than their father's generation did (…) The study was produced by a handful of politically diverse think tanks including the Pew Charitable Trusts, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Urban Institute. It looked at income levels of American men in their 30s, which can be a good indicator of lifetime income. (…) Relying on Census Bureau figures, the study's authors found that after adjusting for inflation, men in their 30s in 2004 had a median income of about $35,000 per year, for a 12 percent drop compared with $40,000 per year for men in the same age group in 1974. (cnn.com) See here for more: http://www.scribd.com/doc/70425671/Economic-Mobility http://www.scribd.com/doc/70425671/Economic-Mobility >>Only in a bizarro world where the wealth is magically readjusted to account for inequality. In the real world this inequality is caused by wealth moving from the middle to the upper classes. Are you seriously calling a world of economic growth and technological process "bizarro world"? No, what I call bizarro world is that place you describe where "inequality is pretty much unrelated to how many people are middle class". >We have become vastly wealthier than we were at any historical period, ignoring short term fluctuations (e.g., recessions). In the 1970s, the bottom 11% didn't have flush toilets. Again, conflating technological and manufacturing progress (and cheaper prices for certain products) with wealth. From Wikipedia: "12.3% fell below the federal poverty threshold and the bottom 20% earned less than $19,178". And this "less than $20K annual", is for household incomes, not personal. >Hahaha! Now I know you are writing a parody of something - first complaining about inequality, then complaining about wages becoming more equal. Yes, it must be "hahaha"-level funny for all the families in foreclosures, the homeless, the dying communities with an industry in decline, et al. And, no, I'm not complaing about "wages becoming more equal", I'm complaining about wages entering a race to the bottom. If the chinese made $1/hour and US workers made $20/hour, getting the chinese to $2/hour and the US workers to $5/hour is not the kind of equality we were discussing. How about raising Chinese wages WITHOUT fucking the american middle class over (and eventually the Chinese too, as it both caps their salaries and kills their market)?