On a side note, do you think you could give the William Faulkner prose style a rest? It does start to grate after a while…

Whatever. Maybe Edwards asked maybe the guy did it on his own, who cares, it was an ironic situation worthy of a chuckle. Why’re you getting your panties in a twist?
And I must not have the long distance intertemporal mind reading capabilities you have because after taking your advice and doing some serious meditatin’, contemplatin’ and plain ol’ head scratchin’, I still don’t see anything in there about inequality. Oh and your hint! I thought its brilliance would illuminate the dusty recesses of my limited intellect but alas, it shone with a phony light, like a wil’ o wisp.

Look, the reason I’m being an asshole, is cuz you’re being a condescending prick. I’m quite familiar with the literature and controversies with regard to inequality and poverty.So please…

When you’ve done that, perhaps go back to read what Taylor sets out to attack in his article; what he describes as Edwards’ “Two Americas spiel.” Stop for a while then, and meditate on what Taylor’s criticisms are intended to do. Hint: when someone sets out facts which are intended to refute someone’s arguments about whether inequalities are emerging between two Americas, these facts are usually intended to be relevant to the topic of inequality.

Finally, go out and acquaint yourself with the vigorous and unresolved debates on where to set the poverty line, whether to use relative or absolute poverty rates usw. You don’t even have to stray from the economics literature to do so – there’s quite a lot out there.

and John Q and Henry quote him as saying as:

With price points dropping below the $1000 mark, high-end TVs are moving down-market fast with Wal-Mart leading the way.

I don’t see any statements above about inequality. Or in the article as a whole. I think this is called making hay out of a man. No, wait, it’s making man out of a straw. Or something like that.

Anyway, basic point is, inequality has gone up, poverty hasn’t. So

I’ve put in terms of inequality rather than poverty is that I don’t want to get hung up on issues like poverty lines

if you’re not willing to get hung up on poverty lines how can you even begin to discuss inequality seriously? Poverty’s helluva easier to define than inequality.
And the posts were about taking an article, which made some snark remarkes about Edwards (who slags WalMart but then has one of his staffers ask Walmart for a deal on a PS3) and which goes on to say that there’s a good number of probably low income people who are purchasing a PS3 and then present the article as an examplar of liberterian stupidity in regards to the issues of inequality which the article did not address.

I think this is called taking pots at the cheap.

But all the discussion here, and in Taylor’s article has been about how well or badly people on low incomes (particularly low-wage workers) are doing. The only reason I’ve put in terms of inequality rather than poverty is that I don’t want to get hung up on issues like poverty lines.

As regards the substantive issues, the trends that concern me have been going on much longer than the current business cycle.

Which points to the fact that Taylor, as I said in the other thread, is not talking about inequality but rather (absolute) poverty. I keep hampering on about this but it’s one of my pet peeves when glibly people conflate the two, whatever ideological points they’re trying to score.

Anyway, if we’re talking about inequality in consumption and even quality of living, when relative prices change what matters is the proportion of total budget that people at different incomes spend on the given category. If poor people spend most of their money on food and no money on yachts, and the relative price of food/yachts goes down this makes the poor better off.
Looking at CPI data, from Jan 2001 to Nov 2006, overall CPI has gone up by about 15%. The price index for Food and Housing has gone up slightly higher than this though the difference probably isn’t significant. Prices of recreation and transportation have gone up significantly slower than this (all those PS4!). Price of education has gone up slower but again it’s not that significant of a difference. Price of medical services however has gone up significantly faster (about 27%).

So as far as medical services go John Q is correct. Education, not so much. Also I’m looking at numbers 2001-2006. Most of the increases in poverty and decreases in lack of access to health insurance took place 2001-2003 (like in the report linked to) and have remained stable since then.

This is a typical case of what happens during and after recession and makes this episode not any different than any previous recessions.

Contrary to the Edwards’ pitch that labor-hostile companies are leaving American workers destitute, somebody is making some money out there in America. More importantly, they are making it in many, many cases without a union card. This reality will very hard for union-funded Democrats like Edwards to ignore as the 2008 presidential campaign unfolds. Hewing to the union rules, clear evidence of prosperity, like perhaps a shortage of $600 game machines, will have to be swept out of the campaign.

“But, of course, this tells us precisely nothing about what’s happening to inequality.”

Right—consumption tells us “precisely nothing” about inequality. That’s certainly true, although very question-begging. The whole point of bringing up consumption in the first place is to make the rather banal point that quality of life is overwhelmingly more important than inequality, and moreover that quality of life may have risen in many ways at the same time that inequality was rising. This is consistent, to be sure, with the Quiggin’s claim that quality of life may have, over the past few decades, diminished in one or two ways due to inequality, but it’s rather slippery to insinuate that inequality was the ONLY thing that affected quality of life during that time.

And to Barry, of course you’re right, but it would make a difference if some of the bigger schools helped create cheaper alternatives to the 12th century model. Also, state schools may be cheap at the point of use, but the costs are borne by someone (And thank you taxpayers for the rooftop pool at Hearst hall!) What I was objecting to is how the education establishment address themselves to politicians when college costs go up, rather than face problems they could solve.

Quiggin: “accessibility of college education to the working class.”

Barry: “There are a large number of colleges which cater to those who can’t afford the expensive colleges. Some of these are community colleges; others are 4-year institutions.”

Both are true. Harvard (as per Quiggin’s link) and its ilk are very expensive. But—what do you know—Harvard can’t take 300 million students, and even if it did, the value of a “Harvard” education would become meaningless. Barry’s observation is much more on the money—college education is more available than ever, for those people who are willing to pursue it. There’s no serious argument that this is not true—does anyone think that college education was more available back in, say, 1950, when incomes were more equal but only around 10% of people went to college at all?

But, of course, this tells us precisely nothing about what’s happening to inequality.

Really? Precisely? This isn’t a very precise use of words. The fact that more people can afford consumer goods that were formerly accessible only to the rich may not be a perfect proof that inequality doesn’t matter, but it tells us “precisely” nothing? Wow.

Thought experiment: Incomes were much more equal (let’s say) in medieval Iceland than they are today. Quiggin is saying that it tells us “precisely nothing” that—even in the presence of inequality—poor people today are better able than medieval Icelanders to buy decent clothes, shoes, cars, furniture, food, housing, and so forth.

Again, wow. I agree with the limited statement that it’s more important for poorer people to have health insurance than TVs, but still—“precisely nothing.”

Precisely the consumer goods that allow actual social ascent (instead of its consumer fantasy) are too expensive for poor people. Especially quality education.

Right-wing economists are very stupid if they don’t see that this is a long-term problem—the creation of an unproductive and unhealthy work force. “Let them watch TV while eating Doritos,” the modern Marie Antoinette says.

(Yes, I know that the original quote is apocryphal.)

I’m not john q, but I’ll address it. I see john’s statement as signficantly less polemic than the typical example of what he’s responding to. In my romp through the libertosphere, the kind of argument john complains about is common, and not just among rabid commenters and fringe bloggers. John’s case is a pretty concise explanation of why this sort of cherry picked comparison is ridiculous.

The general point that you can’t simply reject the things whose prices have increased the most in a considerations of cost of living is dead on, and lot of libertarians completely ignore it in polemicizing against the welfare state.

You’re absolutely right that the data isn’t all that clear, and that consumption matters, and I don’t think I’ve seen your site ever pull the kind of three card monte game with statistics that sometimes slips out at more ideologically driven blogs. But this is very clearly a general trope for the economic right, and the ammunition to demolish the more ridiculous versions of it needs to be out there and available. I don’t think John has overstepped here at all.

Or to come at my question from a different direction, suppose the multi-millionaire CEO falls out of favor, and top marginal income-tax rates swing back into 70-90% territory, and the stars align such that upper and lower income quintiles start to move closer to one another rather than farther apart. Such a circumstance would generally be characterized as a reduction in inequality, I think, but even in this world aren’t there going to be differences in relative prices? Even if the income of the poor is coming up and the income of the wealthy is coming down, it’s still possible for health insurance and college costs to be rising while the cost of a TV falls, isn’t it?

Just so it’s clear, I’m not trying to support the use of TVs as a measure of inequality, or to argue that inequality isn’t increasing. I’m just wondering what any of these consumption measures have to do with it.