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alp227

(31,959 posts)
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 08:38 PM Jan 2012

Washington Post publishes opinion piece "Angry about inequality? Don’t blame the rich."

Washington Post this Sunday published an opinion piece by James Q. Wilson, who's described as "a former professor at Harvard University and UCLA" and "the Ronald Reagan professor of public policy at Pepperdine University." Well we all know where we're going with someone whose professorship is named after Reagan.

...the mere existence of income inequality tells us little about what, if anything, should be done about it. First, we must answer some key questions. Who constitutes the prosperous and the poor? Why has inequality increased? Does an unequal income distribution deny poor people the chance to buy what they want? And perhaps most important: How do Americans feel about inequality?


The “rich” in America are not a monolithic, unchanging class. A study by Thomas A. Garrett, economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, found that less than half of people in the top 1 percent in 1996 were still there in 2005. Such mobility is hardly surprising: A business school student, for instance, may have little money and high debts, but nine years later he or she could be earning a big Wall Street salary and bonus.

Mobility is not limited to the top-earning households. A study by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis found that nearly half of the families in the lowest fifth of income earners in 2001 had moved up within six years. Over the same period, more than a third of those in the highest fifth of income-earners had moved down. Certainly, there are people such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates who are ensconced in the top tier, but far more common are people who are rich for short periods.


And then Wilson moves on to shame poor people:


The real income problem in this country is not a question of who is rich, but rather of who is poor. Among the bottom fifth of income earners, many people, especially men, stay there their whole lives. Low education and unwed motherhood only exacerbate poverty, which is particularly acute among racial minorities. Brookings Institution economist Scott Winship has argued that two-thirds of black children in America experience a level of poverty that only 6 percent of white children will ever see, calling it a “national tragedy.”

Making the poor more economically mobile has nothing to do with taxing the rich and everything to do with finding and implementing ways to encourage parental marriage, teach the poor marketable skills and induce them to join the legitimate workforce. It is easy to suppose that raising taxes on the rich would provide more money to help the poor. But the problem facing the poor is not too little money, but too few skills and opportunities to advance themselves.


In other words, Wilson is essentially making a more eloquent translation of Gingrich talking about poor kids being janitors. And Wilson never ever brings up how money and opportunity are often connected, children born in poor communities are served with underfunded, struggling public schools while children born to middle-class or wealthier communities have more opportunities.

And here come the right-wing talking points, right here, citing the book The Poverty of the Poverty Rate by Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute:

Between 1970 and 2010, the net worth of American households more than doubled, as did the number of television sets and air-conditioning units per home. In his book “The Poverty of the Poverty Rate,” Nicholas Eberstadt shows that over the past 30 or so years, the percentage of low-income children in the United States who are underweight has gone down, the share of low-income households lacking complete plumbing facilities has declined, and the area of their homes adequately heated has gone up. The fraction of poor households with a telephone, a television set and a clothes dryer has risen sharply.


"Oh look! Poor people in the US can actually watch TV and wash their clothes!" Wilson even argues:

...the country has become more prosperous, as measured not by income but by consumption: In constant dollars, consumption by people in the lowest quintile rose by more than 40 percent over the past four decades...Though poverty is a problem, it has become less of one.


And: let the private sector help the poor!

One new strategy for helping the poor improve their condition is known as the “social impact bond,” which is being tested in Britain and has been endorsed by the Obama administration. Under this approach, private investors, including foundations, put up money to pay for a program or initiative to help low-income people get jobs, stay out of prison or remain in school, for example. A government agency evaluates the results. If the program is succeeding, the agency reimburses the investors; if not, they get no government money.


(Wilson cited a report about social impact bonds published in the Center for American Progress.)

The comments section wasn't buying this. From the top-recommended one:

Reagan promoted the use of permanent replacement workers, basically making strikes over wages, benefits, and working conditions impossible, all of which have deterioted. Profitible firms are permitted to declare bankruptcy, whelching on their contractual wages, benefits, pensions, and health insurence. Safety net programs have continually been reduced. This has been a 30 year process. If the poor had done this to the rich, the rich-owned newspapers and TV would call it class war, It isn't called class war because the poor and working classes don't own media and don't bribe politicians to say so.

Wilson pretends that inequality results because the rich are smart and educated (and married) while the poor are poor because they are stupid and uneducated, and often can't afford to get married and support a family. But he cannot explain why the richest have gotten so rich, and why the smart, educated, married middle class have lost relative ground.


From the second-most-recommended:

Privileged people write economic policy and tax laws to favor themselves and to make life difficult for the rest. Pretending it's all about hard work and mobility is ridiculous, especially in a time when 3/4 of college grads can't get work in their fields and when most of our work is outsourced by multinationals who have no loyalty to this nation.
22 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Washington Post publishes opinion piece "Angry about inequality? Don’t blame the rich." (Original Post) alp227 Jan 2012 OP
so now the Post is printing the complaints of a fascist? provis99 Jan 2012 #1
What An Ass TheMastersNemesis Jan 2012 #5
James Q Wilson of The Bell Curve??? grasswire Jan 2012 #2
can't wait to read the comments section on this grasswire Jan 2012 #4
he didn't write that book alp227 Jan 2012 #7
you are right, i stand corrected arely staircase Jan 2012 #9
right arely staircase Jan 2012 #8
Hip boots recommended, starting with... Scuba Jan 2012 #3
I can picture him standing in front of La Bastille, snorting derisively at the peasants... nt Xipe Totec Jan 2012 #6
Well, he's totally out of touch because there aren't many good jobs anymore! Quantess Jan 2012 #10
His argument is easily smacked down... because it is factually wrong. Zalatix Jan 2012 #11
You don't get angry with a rattlesnake. dimbear Jan 2012 #12
He is right about the 1% cthulu2016 Jan 2012 #13
The upward mobility of us peasants now is lower than any other industrialized nation. Quantess Jan 2012 #19
I've read some of this guy's stuff before. It reminded me of someone who... BlueJazz Jan 2012 #14
K&R for the comments to the article. JDPriestly Jan 2012 #15
Our American media is absolutely saturated Tsiyu Jan 2012 #16
This guy must lick Newts crusty horns every night. Rex Jan 2012 #17
Senior Advisor to the American Enterprise Institute. Ichingcarpenter Jan 2012 #18
This is the problem with people like him... MrScorpio Jan 2012 #20
Bogus analysis quaker bill Jan 2012 #21
Just looked up the word Douchebag... trumad Jan 2012 #22
 

provis99

(13,062 posts)
1. so now the Post is printing the complaints of a fascist?
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 08:42 PM
Jan 2012

I've met him at political science conferences. He is literally a fascist.

 

TheMastersNemesis

(10,602 posts)
5. What An Ass
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 08:45 PM
Jan 2012

He obviously has his head up his rectum. People like him need to pay a price. Too bad someone just does not get into his face.

alp227

(31,959 posts)
7. he didn't write that book
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 08:50 PM
Jan 2012

he wrote these books though

The Moral Sense (1993)
The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families (2002)
American Politics, Then & Now (2010)

and he wrote a textbook American Government that's been controversial over its coverage of separation of church and state and essentially being a Fox News version of history.

but Wilson co-authored a book with Bell Curve co-author Richard Herrnstein, Crime and Human Nature (1985).

arely staircase

(12,482 posts)
8. right
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 08:52 PM
Jan 2012

an expert at dressing up racist and classist bile as scholarship.

edited to say he didn't wright it but above description stands

 

Scuba

(53,475 posts)
3. Hip boots recommended, starting with...
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 08:43 PM
Jan 2012

"The “rich” in America are not a monolithic, unchanging class"

Quantess

(27,630 posts)
10. Well, he's totally out of touch because there aren't many good jobs anymore!
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 09:53 PM
Jan 2012

It doesn't matter if you have a college education, you are most likely going to have a hard time finding a job that matches your high qualifications. Reams of intelligent, educated, ambitious people have crappy jobs or are holding out in vain for a decent job.

All our jobs were outsourced, remember? Ohhh, yeah.

cthulu2016

(10,960 posts)
13. He is right about the 1%
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 10:08 PM
Jan 2012

America does indeed have some mobility of people entering and leaving the 1%. That's why 1% is not a very useful category.

There is no comparable mobility regarding the 0.1%.

Quantess

(27,630 posts)
19. The upward mobility of us peasants now is lower than any other industrialized nation.
Mon Jan 30, 2012, 04:43 AM
Jan 2012

Just a tad less mobile than Great Britain. Please sir, may I have another?

 

BlueJazz

(25,348 posts)
14. I've read some of this guy's stuff before. It reminded me of someone who...
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 11:29 PM
Jan 2012

....talks all the time and says absolutely nothing.
He uses "facts" that hold as much water as a worn out sieve

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)
15. K&R for the comments to the article.
Mon Jan 30, 2012, 12:06 AM
Jan 2012

Wilson seems to have missed the fact that we have extremely high unemployment at this time and that it is thanks to the failure of the Bush administration in regulating big business.

Tsiyu

(18,186 posts)
16. Our American media is absolutely saturated
Mon Jan 30, 2012, 02:45 AM
Jan 2012


with humans who raise their personal prejudices and justifications to a level equal with "truth."

This is merely one more drop in the sopping wet pail of bullshit reprinted and rebroadcast every day.

All I can do is shake my head and try not to be sick.....the poor can't buy what they NEED, forget buying what they want.






MrScorpio

(73,626 posts)
20. This is the problem with people like him...
Mon Jan 30, 2012, 06:16 AM
Jan 2012

He blames the powerless for being out of power, but when the powerless does something to get their piece of the pie, it's problematic for him.

If he's not part of the solution, he's part of the problem.

quaker bill

(8,223 posts)
21. Bogus analysis
Mon Jan 30, 2012, 08:31 AM
Jan 2012

defining the top quintile as "rich" masks the problem. The distribution curves for wealth and income are so skewed that the distance between bottom of the upper 20 percent and the rest of us is not all that large in dollars. Income does not really accelerate upwards toward great wealth until you get up near the top 5 percent anymore.

Second, many in the top fifth will move down a notch or two by the simple and predictable act of retirement. This is economic mobility of sorts, but it says little about policy, because regardless of policy, people get older and retire.

In addition, moving from the bottom fifth up a notch can mean that one is less poor, but still quite poor. As people gain experience at their job, often their income will improve somewhat. This also happens with age. As folks get older, on average they tend to get married and have kids. One can still be scraping to get by at the 25% point, particularly if you have kids. Statistically, you look much better off, but the reality is not necessarily the same. It comes down to income distribution again, families above the lowest quintile in many places still qualify for TANF.

Finally all the BS about appliances. Has anyone at AEI noticed that TVs, computers, and laundry equipment has become far cheaper since production went to China?

When I was a kid in the early 60s there was one family down the street that had a color TV. It was quite a status symbol. It cost more very expensive dollars then than a reasonable size flat screen does in today's relatively cheap dollars. (and the picture was bad, people kept turning green and then purple). That 60s color TV cost 2/3 as much as a new car. Today you can have a useable flat screen for 1% of the cost of a new car (or less depending on your vehicle preference).

The same goes with washers and dryers. Many low rent apartments come equipped with an over/under laundry pair. If dollars were again constant, the price tag is about the same as it was in the 60s - a few hundred bucks for budget equipment that has roughly the same functions. However a few hundred bucks was big money in the 60s, and not so much now.

Yes, the poor here often have indoor plumbing and electrical service (when they are not homeless). This makes poverty isomewhat better here than it is for the vast multitude living in mud huts in the third world. However, one must ask why this is the standard proposed for comparison?

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