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July 28, 2004 Boston D Party Some random thoughts have crossed my mind while viewing and reading about the Democratic Convention.
Jimmy Carter having a keynote address at the convention should strike you as a bit odd. After all, this is a guy whose humiliating performance as president, and subsequent defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan, more or less exiled him from the Convention. Nobody has allowed Jimmy Carter anywhere near a prime-time speaking slot at a convention for 24 years. I'm not sure it says good things about the Democrats that he has become one of the party's chief spokesmen this year. I dunno, perhaps the fact that it's been more than 2 decades since his presidency, the Democrats feel that memories have faded enough to make him useful again. It's just interesting that a man whose presidency has come to be almost universally derided as an abject failure is now the eminence grise of the Democratic party.
Barack Obama. I suspect that we'll be hearing a lot about this gentleman in the coming years. Unless, of course, he slips into obscurity like Harold Ford, who was the star of a previous Democratic convention.
Maybe it's cruel, but Teresa Heinz-Kerry reminds me of Lisa (Eva Gabor) in Green Acres. Rich, cosmopolitan, and with an unplaceable foreign accent. But a rather short-tempered, sharp-tongued Lisa. There's just a hovering sense that she's just a bit too tightly wound, and, at any moment, could explode, injuring innocent bystanders with a flying cloud of bitch shrapnel. I'm not sure she plays as well in Red-State America as she does in, say Manhattan.
How much of a polling bump are the Democrats really expecting to get out of this? More people are watching reruns of CSI: Miami, or the prime-time lineup on The WB than are watching ABC, CBS, or NBC. The networks are each pulling around 3% or less of the viewing audience. Maybe that'll pick up tonight when John Edwards, or tomorrow when John Kerry speaks, but so far, it's been a pretty eventless and unwatched convention. But, with ratings down by 24% compared to what they were in 2004, it strikes me that the Dems just aren't attracting a lot of interest. I don't think that indicates that a Mike Dukakis-like, 17-point lead is in the offing when this thing shuts down. Although, in a sense, the last thing the Dems want is any controversial news coming out of this convention. They have to keep it as vanilla, centrist, and pleasing as possible, or they've got a problem. The fact is that, based on the polling I've seen, the delegates are way, way out of the mainstream on practically any issue you can name. 60% of the delegates at the convention want an immediate unilateral withdrawal from Iraq, for example. They could get a lot more people watching if they let their hair down, and started proclaiming what they really believe. But, unfortunately, seeing the wave of Bush-hating moonbattery that would elicit would cause the electorate to recoil in disgust and horror at the thought of these imbeciles running the show for four years. Having an unwatchably boring convention is the best possible thing in the world for them, because hiding the true nature of the pathology than animates the Dems this year is their only hope for victory at all. But, if nobody is watching, it's difficult to see how that translates into a massive increase in poll numbers when this thing shuts down.
The Edwards speech tonight will undoubtedly be another one of those "two America" deals. This irks me. First, it strikes me—and, presumably, anyone with a lick of common sense—as pretty transparent to talk about how the other party is all about dividing Americans, while speaking for 30 minutes on the "two Americas" meme. Yeah, they can call the president a lying warmonger, who's destroyed American credibility abroad, and the economy at home by tax giveaways to the rich, but that's not divisive. It's not divisive to tell the American people that they are the tools of rich corporate fat cats who are out to screw them, abetted by an administration that willingly does the bidding of bloated plutocrats, rather than working for the interests of the common people. Talking about gay marriage or abortion, though. That's divisive. But it takes a lot of gall to recite this foolishness with a straight face, and expect that no one will see the deeply hypocritical reasoning behind it. Another problem with it is that, most people, if given the chance, would like to join the ranks of bloated plutocrats themselves. Americans may resent the rich on some level, but not so much that they want to close off the rewards for being rich, just in case they get a shot at wealth themselves. And they know that making it harder to create wealth means that their shot at obtaining wealth will become more remote. A few years ago, a polling firm in Russia asked people if they would rather be rich themselves, or prevent a neighbor from becoming rich. The vast majority of respondents preferred to prevent their neighbor from becoming rich. That's the end result of the 'two Americas" meme--an ingrained resentment against wealth creation. News flash to the Russians: with that attitude, you'll never have to worry about either alternative happening. That kind of resentment and divisiveness is destructive, both socially and economically. A society that resents the wealthy is a short step away from becoming a society that votes itself into penury by ensuring that no one can create wealth. Finally, all this talk about divisiveness is just silly. Elections are supposed to be divisive. If the issues at stake in an election weren't divisive, there wouldn't be any reason to debate them, or to vote on them either, for that matter. The very nature of politics is divisive. The framers of the Constitution made no provision for political parties. George Washington, in his farewell address, counseled against having them. But that was just a silly Utopianism. People are always going to disagree, about the issues, no matter how large or small the issues are. Gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research, Iraq: all of these are divisive issues, with different segments of the population holding deeply serious moral or philosophical positions in opposition to the other. The democrats pretend as if supporting gay marriage isn't divisive, while opposing it is. Quite apart from the fact that about 60% of the electorate opposes gay marriage, it's simply a stupid argument to press. Both sides of the argument are divisive. If they weren't, we'd all agree, for cripes sake.
With all this talk about the little people, the Democratic delegates sure seem well-insulated from the regular struggles of daily life, like meeting a payroll, or keeping a job. More than half of the Democratic delegates are NEA union-member teachers, who essentially have jobs for life, and who can’t be fired for practically any offense outside of child-buggery, or espousing conservative or religious views in the classroom. That's a pretty good deal, compared to what most of us face. The Democrats' biggest donor group is the trail lawyers, whose very livelihoods consist of convincing a jury that their clients are not responsible in any way, for the bad things that happen to them, even if they open a hot cup of coffee while traveling in a moving vehicle. And, naturally, they have to argue that, since they get at least a third of any money that gets awarded. That gives them a vested interest in pushing the "two Americas" meme. There is, after all, a lot of money in it. Their most well-known spokesmen are Hollywood celebrities who make tens of millions of dollars a year for pretending to be people they aren't, while reciting lines written by somebody else. I guess it's easy to call for higher taxes when the rounding errors in your tax return are greater than the average worker's salary. So, if taxes are raised, and you can't find a good loophole, you'll make $36 million next year instead of $38 million. I hope that you can tighten your belt enough to scrape by, Hollywood-boy. Then, of course, there are the grass-roots activist, who often consist of college students, whose sole life experience has consisted of being completely taken care of by others. But, college students believe a lot of very silly things that, by the time they're 30, and have had a chance to live in the real world, they'll no longer believe.
Nice hats. Very colorful.
Here's an interesting little exercise. Read Howard Dean's speech, and find a single nice thing he has to say about John Kerry. But he's not bitter.
OK, what's the deal with the kids? Twelve-year-old Ilana Wexler comes out, tells Dick Cheney he needs a time out. The crowd goes wild. Uh, she's twelve. I mean, OK, granted, the average 12 year-old child probably does have a better grasp of politico-strategic realities than the average DNC convention delegate, but still...I mean, you all realize that some adult wrote this for her, and she's just reciting it for your amusement, right? It's not like she spent a couple of weeks at the New York Times' morgue, researching issues from the last three years on microfilm. Why are we supposed to get all giddy because they troop out children to say their lines?
Mickey Kaus got the following email: The Times, CNN, and the convention LOVED Obama's "One America" speech. Heh. |
Hmmm. Just thought I'd let you know that *I'm* watching, and some of my friends are watching, and even more people I know are accessing C-SPAN coverage and looking up transcripts online. Oh, and Tivo.
And it's weird: everyone I talk to has a lot of respect for Jimmy Carter. Some people - probably most people - recognize that his presidency failed, but that it wasn't because of a lack of ideas or a deficit in understanding the world. Most people I talk to think that he's setting the best example of how to be an ex-president *ever*. I'm not being sarcastic. He's respected, more than any other recent ex-president. I think you're misreading public opinion if you honestly think most people regard him as a humiliating symbol of an abject failure, or a target of derision. I mean, I know you do. But I think you're off-track about the majority of Americans.
And Heinz-Kerry's accent? You don't sound cruel, just petty and stuck-up. Look, I can't stand the way my governor says "Kahl-ee-for-neeah", but dude, everybody came here from somewhere. My own great-grandparents spoke German all their lives, and *never* learned the language of their adopted country. Slamming someone's accent is just kind of pathetic. It's like snarking about how Michael Moore is fat. So. What.
Posted by: larkspur at July 28, 2004 01:11 PM
Jimmy Carter having a keynote address at the convention should strike you as a bit odd...Nobody has allowed Jimmy Carter anywhere near a prime-time speaking slot at a convention for 24 years.Dale, Let's back up the bus 20 years and recall another loser of yesteryear who became keynote speaker. I refer, of course, to Barry Goldwater speaking before the RNC in 1984. His firebrand style of leadership (e.g. promising to restart nuclear testing in the face of the prevailing détente orthodoxy of the day) ensured his pummeling in '64 but seemed quite ahead-of-his-time to Republicans 20 years later when confronting the Soviet "evil empire" was de-facto party policy.
Today, Carter's historical willingness to play the diplomat, instead of the confrontationalist, has much partisan appeal to the core of the Democratic Party. Accordingly, the "failed" approach of yesteryear and its main proponent are now germane.
Posted by: D at July 28, 2004 01:35 PM
Hey, larkspur, I defy you to show me where I made fun of Ms. Kerry's accent.
Posted by: Dale Franks at July 28, 2004 01:45 PM
Another problem with it is that, most people, if given the chance, would like to join the ranks of bloated plutocrats themselves.
This is the point of Edwards' Two Americas speech. He's saying that Bush has cut down on social mobility, and made it difficult for the poor but talented to become rich. He agrees with Obama, too. Both believe that there should be one America, but Bush's policies have didvided the country in two.
Finally, all this talk about divisiveness is just silly. Elections are supposed to be divisive.
Maybe someone shoudl have told that 'uniter, not a divider' guy. What was his name again?
Posted by: sym at July 28, 2004 01:54 PM
Bad news for Kerry....a new Farleigh Dickinson poll shows Bush virtually tied w/ Kerry in the Garden State (NJ) 43-45
If NJ is really in play, Kerry is in trouble.
Posted by: shark at July 28, 2004 02:04 PM
This is the point of Edwards' Two Americas speech. He's saying that Bush has cut down on social mobility, and made it difficult for the poor but talented to become rich. He agrees with Obama, too. Both believe that there should be one America, but Bush's policies have didvided the country in two
How fricking stupid. Care to explain how social mobility has been destroyed in 3.5 years?
Posted by: shark at July 28, 2004 02:08 PM
Hmmm. Just thought I'd let you know that *I'm* watching, and some of my friends are watching, and even more people I know are accessing C-SPAN coverage and looking up transcripts online. Oh, and Tivo.
Yeah, and you're leaving comments at political bogs, too. Do you suspect that makes you, I dunno, slightly out of step with the majority of the electorate in your interest in politics?
Posted by: Dale Franks at July 28, 2004 03:05 PM
It's not so much that Bush has destroyed social mobility as that he's made a bad problem worse.
Allow me to block-quote Krugman:
Put it this way: Suppose that you actually liked a caste society, and you were seeking ways to use your control of the government to further entrench the advantages of the haves against the have-nots. What would you do?One thing you would definitely do is get rid of the estate tax, so that large fortunes can be passed on to the next generation. More broadly, you would seek to reduce tax rates both on corporate profits and on unearned income such as dividends and capital gains, so that those with large accumulated or inherited wealth could more easily accumulate even more. You'd also try to create tax shelters mainly useful for the rich. And more broadly still, you'd try to reduce tax rates on people with high incomes, shifting the burden to the payroll tax and other revenue sources that bear most heavily on people with lower incomes.
Meanwhile, on the spending side, you'd cut back on healthcare for the poor, on the quality of public education and on state aid for higher education. This would make it more difficult for people with low incomes to climb out of their difficulties and acquire the education essential to upward mobility in the modern economy.
And just to close off as many routes to upward mobility as possible, you'd do everything possible to break the power of unions, and you'd privatize government functions so that well-paid civil servants could be replaced with poorly paid private employees.
It all sounds sort of familiar, doesn't it?
Posted by: sym at July 28, 2004 03:49 PM
"I defy you to show me where I made fun of Ms. Kerry's accent..."
OK...
"Maybe it's cruel, but Teresa Heinz-Kerry reminds me of Lisa (Eva Gabor) in Green Acres. Rich, cosmopolitan, and with an unplaceable foreign accent."
Short memory. symptom of wingnuttery...
Posted by: Elmer at July 28, 2004 04:03 PM
And, what denigrating thing did I say about her accent. Did I say it sounded foolish? Did I mock it?
No. I merely mentioned it existed.
Hypersensitivity is a hallmark of moonbattery.
Posted by: Dale Franks at July 28, 2004 04:06 PM
Quoting Krugman isn't a good idea, as he's been wrong far more often than right over the past few years...
One thing you would definitely do is get rid of the estate tax, so that large fortunes can be passed on to the next generation. More broadly, you would seek to reduce tax rates both on corporate profits and on unearned income such as dividends and capital gains, so that those with large accumulated or inherited wealth could more easily accumulate even more.
Reducing taxes allows anyone to gain wealth more quickly, and the largest percentage cuts in tax rates were to the lowest brackets. Reducing taxes on capital gains and dividends also helps small investors keep more of what they make. It also spurs investment into companies, allowing them to expand and hire people more quickly. Reducing estate taxes is only fair, since the money in the estate has already been taxed.
Meanwhile, on the spending side, you'd cut back on healthcare for the poor, on the quality of public education and on state aid for higher education.
I'm sorry, did I miss a cut in healthcare spending? And education funding at the federal level has increased over 35% these past 3+ years. Krugman seems to be wrong on these points.
But aside from that, has financial mobility decreased in the past 3.5 years? The truthful answer is "no".
Posted by: Steverino at July 28, 2004 04:09 PM
"And, what denigrating thing did I say about her accent. Did I say it sounded foolish? Did I mock it?"
It's "unplaceable" and "foreign"...and compared her to a ditzy sit-com character.
Nope, nothing denigrating about that I guess..[/sarcasm]
Dishonesty and denial...more wingnuttery...
Posted by: Elmer at July 28, 2004 04:16 PM
"Unplaceable" merely means it is of indeterminate origin. "Foreign" means that it is not an American accent.
Both terms are factual, rather than denigrating.
Again, you are either hypersensitive, or unable to read for comprehension.
Or both.
In either event, you're reading WAY too much into it.
It's the next paragraph where I rip into her, you fool. That's the one you should be steamed about.
Posted by: Dale Franks at July 28, 2004 04:34 PM
What an amazing blog! Both these guys are either idiots or disingenuous assholes.
Elmer,
He also prefaced his comment with, "Maybe it's cruel ...", thereby acknowledging that his comparison was denigrating, perhaps, to the point of "cruel[ty]." Then he comes and gives us a pathetic, "who me?" routine trying to avoid what he acknowledged already.
Classic.
Posted by: Anonymous Blogger at July 28, 2004 04:38 PM
Yes, obviously nothing helps the poor get rich like cutting billionare's estate taxes, which is why the Bush economy has been such a stunning success, and is considered by many economists to be even more successful than Herbert Hoover's.
Anyways, my original point was that there is no actual contradiction between Obama's and Edwards' speeches, regardless of how empirically true their or Krugman's contentions might be.
But aside from that, has financial mobility decreased in the past 3.5 years? The truthful answer is "no".
Do you have any research that shows this?
Posted by: sym at July 28, 2004 04:56 PM
"Both these guys are either idiots or disingenuous assholes."
Dissemblers and cowards, like their Dear Leader Dubya...
"It's the next paragraph where I rip into her, you fool. That's the one you should be steamed about"
You are confused. I'm not "steamed" about anything....just mildly amused by the smell of desperation emanating from the right wing these days; a desperation evident in the frantic search for something, anything to criticize in the opposition, no matter how trivial or unsubstantive.
Thanks for playing! You've been a wonderful contestant... ;-)
Posted by: Elmer at July 28, 2004 04:57 PM
Hebert Hoover helped pass two large tax increases (both tariff and income). Oh, and Hoover presided over a depression, which had a shrinking economy and a high unemployment rate. Under 6% is not a high unemployment rate. The US govt used to try to guide the economy to what they beleived was "Full Employment" with monetary policy. Full Employment was considered 5%. 0.6% higher then "Full Employment" does not equal emplyment crisis.
Posted by: Frank Castle at July 28, 2004 05:24 PM
as I said, Bush's economy has been more successful than Hoover's. I smell a campaign slogan coming on!
Posted by: sym at July 28, 2004 05:47 PM
Look, you two idiots. What I mean when I said "this may be cruel" wasn't that she reminded me of Eva Gabor. What I thought might have been cruel was calling her a tightly wound and flakey.
You've gone off on a moonbat tangent on the fact that she has an accent. It's not the accent that's wierd, it's her that's wierd.
Jebus cripes. At least complain about what I was actually insulting her for.
Oh, and another thing, I don't have any particular responsibility to be substantive or non-trivial. I'm not the Chicago Trib or the NY Times. If I wanna make fun of people because I'm feeling a little snarky, then I get to do so. I make tons of substantive criticism all the time, I think I'm allowed to go off tangent into snarkville occasionally.
If Whoopie gets to make jokes comparing "Bush" to her pudenda, then I think I get to have a little slack, too.
Posted by: Dale Franks at July 28, 2004 06:46 PM
Yes, obviously nothing helps the poor get rich like cutting billionare's estate taxes,
You do know that the estate tax kicks in at about $700K, right? You don't even have to be a millionaire to be hit by it. But you sidestepped my main point on the estate tax: the money's already been taxed. Or do you think it's just to tax someone twice just because he's worked a bit too hard and provided for his children too well? Tell me again how reducing the lowest income tax brackets only helps the billionaires.
Do you have any research that shows this?
Minority home ownership is at an all-time high under Bush. Home ownership in general is at an all-time high. Now show me any research that indicates financial mobility has decreased over the past few years.
Posted by: Steverino at July 28, 2004 07:46 PM
Aside from the moral problems against the estate tax, perhaps the best argument against it is the fact that it actually costs the economy as much money as it gathers the government.
A (roughly) 2-3 year old CBO study concluded that it was a very inefficient, counterproductive tax, and should be repealed.
Posted by: Jon Henke at July 28, 2004 07:50 PM
From the Krugman piece, citing those shrill lefties at Business Week:
It is true, however, that America was once a place of substantial intergenerational mobility: Sons often did much better than their fathers. A classic 1978 survey found that among adult men whose fathers were in the bottom 25 percent of the population as ranked by social and economic status, 23 percent had made it into the top 25 percent. In other words, during the first thirty years or so after World War II, the American dream of upward mobility was a real experience for many people.
Now for the shocker: The Business Week piece cites a new survey of today's adult men, which finds that this number has dropped to only 10 percent. That is, over the past generation upward mobility has fallen drastically. Very few children of the lower class are making their way to even moderate affluence. This goes along with other studies indicating that rags-to-riches stories have become vanishingly rare, and that the correlation between fathers' and sons' incomes has risen in recent decades. In modern America, it seems, you're quite likely to stay in the social and economic class into which you were born.
Business Week attributes this to the "Wal-Martization" of the economy, the proliferation of dead-end, low-wage jobs and the disappearance of jobs that provide entry to the middle class. That's surely part of the explanation. But public policy plays a role--and will, if present trends continue, play an even bigger role in the future.
Posted by: sym at July 28, 2004 08:47 PM
Furthermore, I never said that the estate tax was fair or effective. But it hurts social mobility, since it means that those born rich are more likely to remain rich.
Minority home ownership is at an all-time high under Bush. Home ownership in general is at an all-time high.
Link? And this isn't quite the same thing, is it?
Posted by: sym at July 28, 2004 08:54 PM
But it hurts social mobility, since it means that those born rich are more likely to remain rich.
Allowing families to pass wealth to their children helps social mobility, not hurt it. Other people being rich do not make you poor. Micheal Jordan giving his children the family fortune will not hurt my social mobility in any negative way. How could it?
Posted by: Frank Castle at July 28, 2004 09:34 PM
Income mobility is the point, correct? And to dispute Krugman there are a number of studies out there, as listed here which certainly dissagree with his conclusions. One would assume that if America has been Walmartized, as the left likes to claim, the sort of movement these studies noted wouldnt' be happening.
Many academic studies have found remarkably consistent results that suggest there is substantial income mobility in the United States. For example:* A 1992 Treasury Department study showed that between 1979 and 1988, 86 percent of those in the bottom income quintile moved to a higher quintile, and 35 percent in the top income quintile moved to a lower quintile. 2
* A 1995 Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report showed that almost three-fourths of those in the bottom quintile in 1975 were in a higher quintile by 1991, and almost 40 percent in the top quintile moved down to a lower quintile over the same period. 3
* A 1996 Urban Institute study showed that large numbers of Americans move into a new income quintile, with estimates ranging from 25 percent to 40 percent in a single year. The same study found even higher mobility rates over longer periods: about 45 percent over five years and 60 percent over 9-year and 17-year periods. 4
* In 1998, the Census Bureau reported that, on average, over 41 percent of Americans increased their inflation-adjusted income by 5 percent or more per year from 1984 to 1994. 5 The primary reasons for changes in income from year to year were changes in marital status, changes in the number of workers in the household, and moving into or out of full-time, year-round employment.
* A 2000 Economic Policy Institute study showed that almost 60 percent of Americans in the lowest income quintile in 1969 were in a higher quintile in 1996, and over 61 percent in the highest income quintile had moved down into a lower income quintile during the same period. 6
Walmart nor the concept showed up in 2001, sym, so either you can produce something which shows that the same sort of income mobility stopped in the 2001 to 2004 period because of Bush's economic policies or you can't. But there's no indication of such that I can find, except Krugman's nonsense, which backs your claim. That list of studies by very different groups, however, says Krugman, as usual, is all wet.
Posted by: McQ at July 28, 2004 09:53 PM
Funny, Krugman adresses the Heritage Foundation piece:
Never mind, say the apologists, who churn out papers with titles like that of a 2001 Heritage Foundation piece, "Income Mobility and the Fallacy of Class-Warfare Arguments." America, they say, isn't a caste society--people with high incomes this year may have low incomes next year and vice versa, and the route to wealth is open to all. That's where those commies at Business Week come in: As they point out (and as economists and sociologists have been pointing out for some time), America actually is more of a caste society than we like to think. And the caste lines have lately become a lot more rigid.
The myth of income mobility has always exceeded the reality: As a general rule, once they've reached their 30s, people don't move up and down the income ladder very much. Conservatives often cite studies like a 1992 report by Glenn Hubbard, a Treasury official under the elder Bush who later became chief economic adviser to the younger Bush, that purport to show large numbers of Americans moving from low-wage to high-wage jobs during their working lives. But what these studies measure, as the economist Kevin Murphy put it, is mainly "the guy who works in the college bookstore and has a real job by his early 30s." Serious studies that exclude this sort of pseudo-mobility show that inequality in average incomes over long periods isn't much smaller than inequality in annual incomes.
You could, like, read it so I don't have to keep on quoting it. And remember, it's not Krugman's nonsense, its Business Week's.
either you can produce something which shows that the same sort of income mobility stopped in the 2001 to 2004 period because of Bush's economic policies or you can't.
Well, I can't, but you can't produce any that say it's gotten better, either. Though BW's IS newer. But I doubt millions of lost jobs are great for social mobility. Neither is a record deficit, since it means either future tax raises or cutting of social programs which do benefit social mobility. I know Republicans love deficits, but they are not infinitely sustainable.
Micheal Jordan giving his children the family fortune will not hurt my social mobility in any negative way. How could it?
Because it's one more person taking up your rightful spot in the top quintile.
Posted by: sym at July 28, 2004 10:56 PM
OK, home ownership is up. So are personal bankruptcies. There was/is a housing boom occuring, with the lowest interest rates in a long time helping mortgages become cheap. That is a temporary situation. Let's look at how many of those home foreclosed in 10 years to get a handle on how "sustainable" the housing boom was and just how much it made america more "mobile".
No snark, just a question on this comment:
"the money's already been taxed. Or do you think it's just to tax someone twice just because he's worked a bit too hard and provided for his children too well?"
Money is always multiply taxed, right? I mean, I get taxed when my paycheck arrives, I'm taxed when I buy groceries, and I'm taxed again when April comes around and I owe the government more money. I am definitely not a tax-guy (I'm an engineer, give me science any day), so if you could clarify this double tax thing, I'd appriciate it.
Posted by: verplanck colvin at July 28, 2004 11:35 PM
Arguing about income mobility over the past three years is a bit of a lost cause, since we don't have the studies to look at. In fact, the Census Bureau just did a study of 96-99.
I'd point out, though, that it's a bit disingenuous to discount the mobility of young people who go from low-paying jobs to regular jobs. They account for a great many of the people in the lower brackets. You can't count them when counting the lowest quintile, then neglect their movement.
And re: the estate tax, despite the estate tax cut, charitable bequests are up sharply, disproving one of the arguments against it.
Posted by: Jon Henke at July 29, 2004 06:03 AM
Money is always multiply taxed, right? I mean, I get taxed when my paycheck arrives, I'm taxed when I buy groceries, and I'm taxed again when April comes around and I owe the government more money.
Oh, please! This is bullshit argument. There is a difference between income tax and sales tax. And the tax you pay in April is income tax that wasn't withheld over the past year. Income tax is levied only once.
Posted by: Steverino at July 29, 2004 10:21 AM
"the money's already been taxed. Or do you think it's just to tax someone twice just because he's worked a bit too hard and provided for his children too well?"
I hope that one day I'll be opressed by this injustice.
I'd point out, though, that it's a bit disingenuous to discount the mobility of young people who go from low-paying jobs to regular jobs.
No it isn't. Social mobility should measure whether people stay in the same class that they were born into, not whether they had a better job as a forty year old than as a twenty tear old. If Edwards said "when I was twenty I worked in a factory, and now I'm a fabulously rich lawyer and politician," iw ouldn't be very inspiring or Horatio Alger-ish.
Posted by: sym at July 29, 2004 02:54 PM
Re: my remark that I'm watching the coverage, reading online, etc.
"Yeah, and you're leaving comments at political bogs, too. Do you suspect that makes you, I dunno, slightly out of step with the majority of the electorate in your interest in politics?"
I honestly don't know. I admit to speaking anecdotally, which I indicated by referring to my interest and the interests of people I know. I suspect that more folks are *not* following the convention closely than are following it. But I'm not sure how that relates to anything.
I mean, what if I just answered you with a "Yes"? Again, I ask: so what?
Also - people have addressed the Teresa Heinz-Kerry remark, but I just wanted to add that the *effect* of that snarky opening paragraph (with the comparison to Eva Gabor) was to make me discount the ensuing observations. It's kind of a self-defeating tactic. But am I steamed? Nah.
Posted by: larkspur at July 29, 2004 03:09 PM
"Social mobility should measure whether people stay in the same class that they were born into, not whether they had a better job as a forty year old than as a twenty tear old."
- - -If they had a better job when they were 40, then they--de facto--moved between income quintiles.
Now, if you're saying that the fact that 20-year olds get crappy jobs as a matter of fact skews the matter....i.e., is an outlier....then I'd agree. But I'd also point out that it accounts for a great many of those people who make up the lower quintiles, and you simply can't ignore it.
Regarding whether people stay in the income class into which they're born....well, income quintiles grow in per capita earning terms, as the economy grows. One can live one's entire life--birth to death--in the third quintile and do better than their parents, who were also in that quintile.
Posted by: Jon Henke at July 29, 2004 05:27 PM
"No it isn't. Social mobility should measure whether people stay in the same class that they were born into, not whether they had a better job as a forty year old than as a twenty tear old."
Great theory. All we have to do is leverage all of the population into the top 50th percentile.
Posted by: andy at July 29, 2004 11:12 PM
In all this talk about social mobility, nobody seems to have mentioned that the lower quintile today represents a much higher standard of living than it did twenty years ago. So even if someone stayed in the lower quintile all their lives, they are probably better off now than they were 20 years ago. That can't be laid at Bush's feet, since it's been going on for 20 years.
As for intergenerational social mobility, it wouldn't surprise me if we really don't have enough data to come to any conclusions, since it takes 30 years or so to see where the next generation ends up. How long have we been collecting data on this? Is it long enough to see whether, say, Gen X is more mobile compared to their Boomer parents than their Boomer parents were relative to their WWII-era parents?
And what point do we call a person's final destination when it comes to social mobility? Do we count where they end up at retirement? After retirement? Where they are in their 30's? (Early or late 30's?) Which socioeconomic stratum does, say, my dad fall into, since he was a doctor for a while and is now retired from medicine and working at a much lower-paying job? Should we count his mobility from his start as a teenager to its peak when he was a doctor, or should we count his current status as his final destination? What about people who marry into wealth or poverty? Should we count their status before, or after, marriage?
Just a few logistical questions from someone still learning about economics.
Posted by: Wacky Hermit at July 30, 2004 01:49 PM