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

by whyever 12y ago

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...

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

by whyever 12y ago

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

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...