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> hodgepodge of gripes in search of a premise Welcome to The Guardian's opinion pages, where everything is a source of outrage and the shadowy "1%" are always

by SandB0x 12y ago

> hodgepodge of gripes in search of a premise Welcome to The Guardian's opinion pages, where everything is a source of outrage and the shadowy "1%" are always out to get you.

gaius 12y ago
The ironic thing of course is that you can tell everything you need to know about the readers of a paper from the brands that advertise in it, and the readers of the Graun are second only to the FT in their opulence. They are the 1%.
- JonnieCache 12y ago
  http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/guardian-ordered-to-destroy-bourgeois-lifestyle-articles-2013082278865 http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/guardian-ordered-...
whyever 12y ago
It is undeniable that the gap between poor and rich is increasing, especially in the US.
- fennecfoxen 12y ago
  Is it undeniable? Last I heard there was a lot of noise from Picketty and Saez, which was based on fundamentally invalid and unsound scholarship. To put it in computing terms, it's on a par with benchmarking your software for performance improvements, but upgrading your laptop partway through and calling that a massive speedup. A one-time methodology change in the methodology of the census bureau's Current Population Survey (in 1992) is responsible for roughly a third of Picketty's claimed increase in the Gini coefficient. It's undeniable that this has been in the news and on the lips of many partisans. And there was some short-term increase in the aftermath of the latest recession, I suppose. That's not really controversial, though its durability has not yet been proven. (Also, I'm not sure the "especially in the US" label is necessarily deserved.) Really, the "undeniable" label is a tendentious one: it argues, more than it describes. Its purpose is to turn a little solid evidence for a small change into what seems like an ocean of evidence for an overwhelming change. I call it deceitful.
  - whyever 12y ago
    I can understand that the word "undeniable" psychologically evokes resistance because it has an air of zealotry, but I do not think it is deceitful. Probably a poor choice of words on my part. As far as I know, if you look at the richest one percent of the population, their wealth relative to the total has been increasing, while it has been decreasing for the poorest. At least I have not seen statistics supporting the contrary, hence my choice of words. See for example [1] (unfortunately it does not say whether it is before or after taxes). You can argue about details of the methodology (for instance the many problems of the Gini coefficient), but I think it is fair to say that the trend is there. By the way, don't you think that "partisans" is a bit tendentious? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distribution_1947-2007.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Dist...
sopooneo 12y ago
Not to pick on the Guardian specifically, but I've noticed an annoying habit of British journalists to make a long, rambling, accusatory statement, and then at the end turn it into a question by adding, "Isn't it?"

by SandB0x 12y ago

> hodgepodge of gripes in search of a premise Welcome to The Guardian's opinion pages, where everything is a source of outrage and the shadowy "1%" are always out to get you.

gaius 12y ago

The ironic thing of course is that you can tell everything you need to know about the readers of a paper from the brands that advertise in it, and the readers of the Graun are second only to the FT in their opulence. They are the 1%.

JonnieCache 12y ago
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/guardian-ordered-to-destroy-bourgeois-lifestyle-articles-2013082278865 http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/guardian-ordered-...

whyever 12y ago

It is undeniable that the gap between poor and rich is increasing, especially in the US.

fennecfoxen 12y ago
Is it undeniable? Last I heard there was a lot of noise from Picketty and Saez, which was based on fundamentally invalid and unsound scholarship. To put it in computing terms, it's on a par with benchmarking your software for performance improvements, but upgrading your laptop partway through and calling that a massive speedup. A one-time methodology change in the methodology of the census bureau's Current Population Survey (in 1992) is responsible for roughly a third of Picketty's claimed increase in the Gini coefficient. It's undeniable that this has been in the news and on the lips of many partisans. And there was some short-term increase in the aftermath of the latest recession, I suppose. That's not really controversial, though its durability has not yet been proven. (Also, I'm not sure the "especially in the US" label is necessarily deserved.) Really, the "undeniable" label is a tendentious one: it argues, more than it describes. Its purpose is to turn a little solid evidence for a small change into what seems like an ocean of evidence for an overwhelming change. I call it deceitful.
- whyever 12y ago
  I can understand that the word "undeniable" psychologically evokes resistance because it has an air of zealotry, but I do not think it is deceitful. Probably a poor choice of words on my part. As far as I know, if you look at the richest one percent of the population, their wealth relative to the total has been increasing, while it has been decreasing for the poorest. At least I have not seen statistics supporting the contrary, hence my choice of words. See for example [1] (unfortunately it does not say whether it is before or after taxes). You can argue about details of the methodology (for instance the many problems of the Gini coefficient), but I think it is fair to say that the trend is there. By the way, don't you think that "partisans" is a bit tendentious? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distribution_1947-2007.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Dist...

sopooneo 12y ago

Not to pick on the Guardian specifically, but I've noticed an annoying habit of British journalists to make a long, rambling, accusatory statement, and then at the end turn it into a question by adding, "Isn't it?"