Comments on: Inequality in America

By: JRoth

JRoth — Sun, 28 Dec 2003 19:07:05 +0000

The immigration argument is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Anyone with an awareness of Europe knows that, despite much less immigration-friendly laws, Europe has tons of immigrants, as does Australia. In other words, every first world country gets third world immigrants, so it’s no pat on the back to us (Americans) that we get our share. Anyway, getting to the one substantive comment in the thread, I think that it’s dishonest to claim that status heritability is irrelevant to arguments on one side of the spectrum, because perceptions of opportunities for advancement are critical to political choices. Americans love the Horation Alger story, and our policies reflect that – the idea that no one should help the poor, because they can, with just a little self-discipline, become not-poor, as well as the idea that we shouldn’t tax the rich, because we all may become rich, any day now. If everyone knew that these premises were false – or that current policies will tend to falsify them – then everyone would prefer different policies.

By: anti

anti — Fri, 26 Dec 2003 01:24:40 +0000

Dugger No, it wasn’t. The going there was a metaphor for being aware. My point was that the per capita wealth and quality of life in the countries I mentioned are higher than in the USA. The USA isn’t nearly as prosperous in comparison to other nations as it used to be. And the quality of life in the most obese nation in the developed world with the highest divorce rate and highest crime rate isn’t too wonderful either.

By: Dugger

Dugger — Thu, 25 Dec 2003 23:53:55 +0000

anti, No to all of the above. Is your point that one cannot make gross judgments about the wealth and quality of life of nations unless one has been there lately?

By: Anti

Anti — Thu, 25 Dec 2003 04:18:18 +0000

Dugger The poor here are nearly equivalent to the middle class in Europe. Have you been to Switzerland lately? Norway? Belgium? Sweden? The Netherlands? Viteuil Are you putting conservatives and libertarians in the same box? Conservatives have security as their first priority, libertarians freedom. And security and freedom are mutually exclusive. No way do freedom and security fit into the same box.

By: Antoni Jaume

Antoni Jaume — Wed, 24 Dec 2003 22:27:30 +0000

Ziska, IIRC there are about the same number of EU-citizen in the USA than USA-citizens in the EU. DSW

By: Zizka

Zizka — Wed, 24 Dec 2003 05:45:17 +0000

It costs money to emigrate. I’m working on it. The EU is not friendly to American immigrants, and I have few transferable job skills.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Wed, 24 Dec 2003 01:57:23 +0000

vinteuil—Thanks, I was planning to cop out as well for the same reasons. :-) Of course I like to talk about equality of opportunity because I’m not C or L.

By: Vinteuil

Vinteuil — Wed, 24 Dec 2003 01:33:38 +0000

Matt Weiner—I’m going to cop-out (quite shamelessly) on the serious response you deserve. Too much to do, too little time—all the usual excuses. Plus I’m still thinking about it. Suffice it to say, for the moment, that I think C’s and L’s should just stop talking about “equality of opportunity.” It’s a loser for them, except under an extreme and implausible interpretation of the phrase. (This is just one of many reasons why the right will never give me a job.)

By: Lawrence Krubner

Lawrence Krubner — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 20:37:11 +0000

I remember Krugman as being brutal on Clinton. I remember in 95, especially, when Clinton was engaging in some serious Japan-bashing, it seemed like every column Krugman wrote was pretty intensely anti-Clinton.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 19:20:18 +0000

What was it Vinteuil wrote? “Dugger: you have committed irony. Bad Dugger. Bad, bad Dugger.”

By: Dugger

Dugger — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 18:47:03 +0000

Douglas, “The poor who are immigrating are grasping at the chimera of the American Dream.” But my comment precisely referred to the poor who aren’t emigrating. If the immigrating poor can afford to come here, then wouldn’t it make sense that they could also afford to leave here (emigrate) – were it that the situation for the poor here is so hopeless – as Krugweek says? The truth, of course, is that the poor here are nearly (equivalent to) the rich in the third world and nearly the middle class in Europe. And they don’t leave because they don’t want to leave; because they are better off here; because we have a vibrant free market economy that almost always rewards effort and ingenuity.

By: Douglas

Douglas — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 18:30:58 +0000

look for this trend to accelerate as the ‘knowledge worker’ jobs are also outsourced to India, China, etc. Most of these jobs require a college degree: having said degree no longer offers protection against declining wages. In fact it seems likely that more of the middle class will slip into poverty. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place”.. Dugger’s comment is asinine. The poor who are immigrating are grasping at the chimera of the American Dream. Do you think they are reading this blog, or Business Week ? Instead they’re operating on the delusion that America is still the land of opportunity: or on the bet that the American dollar will be able to buy more than their currency. A lousy income in US$ sent back to Mexico is a good income. Incidentally, Krugman did criticize some of Clinton’s policies. It’s just that there’s a lot more to criticize in BushCo.. The point here being that given the known inequality and rigidity of the American class system, a rational public policy would be aimed at ameliorating the problem, not exacerbating it.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 14:58:27 +0000

vinteuil—Thanks for the actual debate. Of course I disagree with you, but there’s actually stuff to talk about here. (1) I don’t see Krugman as naming any names as to whose economic policies are responsible for the decrease in intergenerational mobility. All he says is that “public policy plays a role” along with Wal-Martization. He then says that Bush II’s policies are likely to exacerbate this—and can you deny that? (2) Sure, conservatives and libertarians don’t care much about intergenerational mobility. But lack of intergenerational mobility indicates a lack of equality of opportunity. See a bunch of other threads.

By: Epacris

Epacris — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 10:14:47 +0000

My very-small contribution to a similar debate in Australia, dealing with some of the problems of argument & statistics is at this page. http://uk.geocities.com/epacris55/writing_gallery/average_fallacy/average_fallacy.htm (sorry abt length) When I get time & energy, I might put together a short note on the Australian myth/legend of the three Japanese prisoner-of-war camps (British, American & Australian) supposedly showing the difference between the three societies & why the Australian one is superior.

By: Vinteuil

Vinteuil — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 02:16:29 +0000

Matt Weiner: sorry, but there just isn’t much here to go on. Krugman says that socio-economic mobility in the U.S. declined between the end of Nixon’s presidency (1973) and the end of Clinton’s second term (2000). He predicts that Bush’s policies will exacerbate the trend. But there’s just not enough detail here to tell whether we should attribute this change to “conservative” economic policies under Reagan and Bush I, “liberal” economic policies under Carter and Clinton, both, neither, or whatever. It’s just a very shallow and partisan piece of analysis. Besides—it’s not at all clear how much one ought to care about socio-economic mobility, as such. Conservatives and libertarians are much more worried about other things. If those other things result in lots of socio-economic mobility, fine. If not, well, that’s fine too. Personally, though, I’d welcome a return to the Clinton years. All of the same trends continue or accellerate, but suddently the Krugman’s of the world stop fussing about it.