Manhattan for Rich Only

you are going in circles. how did the developed countries you have in mind get that way? stick to western europe, please.

wbottom, let's say i'm The Troll. i'm the grumpy old troll who lives under the bridge. solve my riddle!!

you brought up 50s and 60s. please share your thoughts.

Lucille--you already identified one of the reasons why Western Europe "got that way"--executive compensation is substantially lower than in the US.

I'd guess the other big reason is that the financial industry hasn't captured as much of the growth in wages as in the US, but I haven't seen data one way or the other to substantiate this.

But you seem to be missing the point: it's not that the rest of the developed countries "got that way". The US used to be that way as well. But in the US, income is being distributed more and more inequitably over time. Europe is staying how it was; the US is changing (for the worse, IMHO).

i'm sorry jordyn, but that whole post is just stupid. a very special kind of stupid that could only come from one person. but do what you gotta do. i'm housebreaking our new puppy today. what are you up to?

Do you think perhaps it's because other countries don't have such ridiculous "rights" as commercial free speech and free spending on the political process, the grotesque concept of a corporation as an artificial person with all the rights therof, and thus can't as easily manipulate government to custom-tailor laws in the interests of megabusinesses and their owners and top executives?

FWIW, I don't think the notion of corporate person-hood is unique to the US (just the opposite, in fact--I think it's the common case). It does seem like corporations may be given more rights in the US; it's unclear to me whether or not this is a significant contributor to the problem.

Lucille--Wow, it really hurts to be called stupid by someone who resorts to name-calling when out of arguments. I guess while you're housebreaking your puppy I'm going to go cry.

Mr. Corporation has more rights than you, alan. he doesn't have to pay taxes, and when he loses obsene amounts of money through sheer stupidity, Mr. Democratically Elected Government Official will just give him some of yours. all of yours, actually. don't have to be The Libertarian in a bored professional computer geek's long and illustrous list of characters to think that, right?

jordyn, i would never call you stupid. i've seen you in enough posters to know it's an act. a great one!

oh you WOULD cry if you saw this little face. a sweet widdle bunny wunny.

> when he loses obsene amounts of money through sheer stupidity, Mr. Democratically Elected Government Official will just give him some of yours.

but who is the stupid then? i'd say not Mr Corporation but Mr Joe 6-Pack that pees his pants when he's asked for a bailout cause "otherwise a total collapse will come"... Mr Corporation aligns his interests to Mr Joe, the average voter, who's so confused that thinks his house is an asset (instead of a liability) and would do anything to prevent its price from going down. Mr Joe also cares about his 401(k), so thinks that inflating the stock mkt cannot be a bad thing (for him). It takes minimal effort from Mr Corporation to sell anything to Mr Joe, that's part of the problem imho.

And Mr. Corporation is totally unrestrained in doing so, because he owns (and writes legislation for) Mr. Politician, especially (but not exclusively) Mr. GOP.

> And Mr. Corporation is totally unrestrained in doing so, because he owns (and writes legislation for) Mr. Politician, especially (but not exclusively) Mr. GOP.

but if Mr J6P wasn't so averse at thinking by himself, he would be able to put a politician that's not so much for sale. i insist, it takes just so little to convince J6P of almost anything, that's too tempting. think about the "death tax" and how effective it was at convincing J6P that taxing inheritances is evil. lets face it, Mr Corp might not be a nice guy, but there's stuff to be learned from him imho. one of the things i've learned from Mr Corp is that planning on depending on wage income is the road to ruin, although much celebrated by J6P.

alan, come on now. you take pride in your nyc pedigree. tell me who absolutely OWNS your nyc and nys representatives? but tiptoe lightly, that ghastly chamber may indeed be sanitized soon. unlikely, but quite possible and more so than any other time in recent memory. ding, dong....

Goldman? Sachs? Am I getting warmer?

"50s and 60s. please share your thoughts."

Keep in mind that one of the reasons why we had a much bigger (and more affluent) middle class in the '50s through the '80s was due to the fact that executive pay wasn't as obscene as it is today. Adjusted for inflation, companies are still making the same "pie" as they were in past years, but the differenc now is that executives -- particularly the c-level execs -- are taking home a much bigger share of that same pie, at the expense of the other worker bees.

Back in the '80s -- and this was when we thought THIS was greedy -- the average CEO made 100 times what a "line worker" in his company made. Today it's upwards of 1,000 times.

Les Moonves makes $52,000,000 per year. Does he really work 693 times as hard as a $75,000 writer or producer at the CBS Television Network? Is his contribution to the company really 693 times greater?

These eight-figure salaries have to come from somewhere, and increasingly it's coming from raises that workers should have been getting since the '80s. It's also coming from increased worker productivity, which is a fancy Wall Street term for companies making employees work harder, for longer hours ... so they can elimiate jobs.

notadmin
"but who is the stupid then? i'd say not Mr Corporation but Mr Joe 6-Pack that pees his pants when he's asked for a bailout cause "otherwise a total collapse will come"... Mr Corporation aligns his interests to Mr Joe, the average voter, who's so confused that thinks his house is an asset (instead of a liability) and would do anything to prevent its price from going down. Mr Joe also cares about his 401(k), so thinks that inflating the stock mkt cannot be a bad thing (for him). It takes minimal effort from Mr Corporation to sell anything to Mr Joe, that's part of the problem imho."

i agree with the gist of your post, but then for our intents and purposes we can't compare them 1:1. mr. j6p is one person, whereas mr. corporation is many people, including many brilliant and brilliantly compensated attorneys. the tragedy is that when a stupid person within Mr. Corporation makes a terrible mistake, the smarter people within Mr. Corporation can still ensure Mr. Corporation's survival and even prosperity. but the important thing that i think many people take for granted is that Mr. Corporation is really just a large number of Mr. J6Ps. riddle me that!

alanhart
14 minutes ago
ignore this person
report abuse Goldman? Sachs? Am I getting warmer?

alan, you are breaking my heart here. BREAKING IT

Also consider this.

Wages for everyone (except those at the top of the scale) have been stagnant since the '70s.

If EVERYONE's salary really kept up with inflation (and I'm counting EVERYTHING, not just the government's made-up breadbasket that conveniently excludes housing, food, fuel, education, child care, and health care costs), the minimum wage from 1975 today would be over $20/hour. The "average" $50K job would be $100K. Today's typical $100K job would pay $200K.

But yesterday's $1,000,000 a year exec would only be getting paid about $5 million, not $50 million.

alanhart
26 minutes ago
ignore this person
report abuse And Mr. Corporation is totally unrestrained in doing so, because he owns (and writes legislation for) Mr. Politician, especially (but not exclusively) Mr. GOP.

it would be wonderful if one party was bad and one was good. after all, if one party was bad, the general population could, in theory, contain the damage it causes. there are truly good, sincere people in both parties, but the leadership of both parties are bought and paid for. you want a valiant do gooder? vote for that crazy old coot, nader. or ron paul, if you lean the other way. but no one who actually gets to a position of power in either party, or anywhere really, has clean hands. have you spent any time in dc? i don't say this to be nasty, but really, everyone should take at least one vacation to our nation's capital, and after visiting the attractions, mingle with the people who run our lives. they're all the same, except for the cute and really excited newcomers.

> Les Moonves makes $52,000,000 per year. Does he really work 693 times as hard as a $75,000 writer or producer at the CBS Television Network? Is his contribution to the company really 693 times greater?
These eight-figure salaries have to come from somewhere, and increasingly it's coming from raises that workers should have been getting since the '80s. It's also coming from increased worker productivity, which is a fancy Wall Street term for companies making employees work harder, for longer hours ... so they can elimiate jobs.

if those salaries overestimate what those employees are worth, the excess should be going to shareholders through higher dividends (that right now are tiny by historical standards). not necessarily to the other workers, maybe the extra $ could be used for investments or extra hiring. in USA there's the myth that executive comp has to be linked to stock mkt performance. most of their salaries are not fixed salaries. this is of course flawed and inefficient but also the result of lack of shareholder power towards reigning in exec comp. for example, i'm able to vote on how much the excellent but lowly paid directors of the best japanese companies are able to retire with besides their salaries. USA gov doesn't give me that right as a shareholder on USA companies. time to change that! japanese board of directors kick asses when compared with american ones, so the "more $ better performance" doesn't hold. they are there working for me, representing me, hence i should have a say on how much they get paid. right now in USA they are basically deciding themselves how much they will get paid.

mattnyc, agreed and agreed

> mr. j6p is one person, whereas mr. corporation is many people, including many brilliant and brilliantly compensated attorneys

for each Mr Corp there are thousands of J6Ps that vote. and yet, J6Ps gets convinced to support stuff against himself on behalf of Mr Corp. low IQ allows for that. it takes 2 to tango, Mr Corp is as mean as J6P is stupid. it only takes a few powerful words for J6P to support almost anything, like "Socialism" and "values".

"they're all the same, except for the cute and really excited newcomers." yeah, heard that one from Bill Clinton

notadmin
for each Mr Corp there are thousands of J6Ps that vote. and yet, J6Ps gets convinced to support stuff against himself on behalf of Mr Corp. low IQ allows for that. it takes 2 to tango, Mr Corp is as mean as J6P is stupid. it only takes a few powerful words for J6P to support almost anything, like "Socialism" and "values".

but admin, each mr. corp is made up of thousands of individials who also vote in their best interest, whatever they think that may be.
it does take 2 to tango, but again, a large corporation's agenda is a unified effort, whereas each individual can only make his decision to the best of his own ability, which is limited by his own circumstances.

"J6P to support almost anything, like "Socialism" and "values"."

what about words like "sarah palin" "racist" so many others. do you really not see that?

Fox News is the greatest netowrk in America. They convince millions of people makig $50k a year to support tax cuts for people making millins a year. Talk radio does a good job too. They should all get some type of award.

"yeah, heard that one from Bill Clinton"

people always assume cute young thing must be female, but if you look closer in dc, you might see a different picture. i never cease to be amazed how GAAAAAAYYY dc is. closet cases for the most part, of course. really, anything goes though, it's a town of leacherous hypocrites of all denominations. i would compare it to la. just a fascinating town.

BUT la entertains us on purpose and dc is more of a accidental dark comedy

hahaha alan, about as cold as lucilles left %$*.

rangersfan, i can't go out with you, i am happily married. even if i did want to cheat on mr. bluth, there is already a very well thought out list of candidates. you're not on it, dear.

NYCMatt you have completely redeemed your self as a human being here--pleaes, please let it stand!!

please provide inforamation and recent dietary changes--i will engage immediately

productivity is euphemism for the wringing of value from our dying middle class--much of which is now our working poor class

apologies lucysorry--you are clearly not an incarnation of the hfs troll--your choice of new name after your little hissy on the combo thread threw me

uhh, it's not meant to throw anyone. it's pretty straight forward.

"NYCMatt you have completely redeemed your self as a human being here--pleaes, please let it stand!!"

Let's not get carried away, although that's a very good start. But, W, you're not the best judge of character either - didn't you accuse me of "right-wing propaganda" (hilarious)?

what?? when??

bj, all i accuse you of is of being lonely, yet alienating

Wbottom
41 minutes ago
ignore this person
report abuse apologies lucysorry--you are clearly not an incarnation of the hfs troll--your choice of new name after your little hissy on the combo thread threw me

ooooohhhh i gotcha. lucy's a little slow today. are you saying i'm mattnyc? fine. i can live with that.

Wbottom
2 minutes ago
ignore this person
report abuse what?? when??

bj, all i accuse you of is of being lonely, yet alienating

actually, i remember the right wing comment. you did say it. not that there's anything wrong with that.

holy crap rangersfan, you have been TROLLED, sir

>Fox News is the greatest netowrk in America. They convince millions of people makig $50k a year to support tax cuts for people making millins a year. Talk radio does a good job too. They should all get some type of award.

Correct, and neither NPR nor PBS could do what Fox has been able to do.

The idea that opportunities to move from one socioeconomic status to another are greater in the U.S. than in Europe is bunk-- both intergenerationally and in the short term. See the following from a 2006 Center for American Progress report on economic mobility in the U.S.:

By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of intergenerational mobility: our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes as adults. Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Among high-income countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than the United States.

neither NPR nor PBS could do what Fox has been able to do.

thankfully.

lucille, you're on quite the roll. cherrywood, exactly. the horatio alger myth is just that, a myth. but our society seems to love it. notadmin claims that j6p is addicted to self abuse, but i don't know that that's exactly true. love him or hate him (and you may blame him for some compromises made in 1998, particularly under the influence of that nasty piece of work larry summers) but clinton had wide appeal with a relatively populist meme. i think j6p is greatly bemused and confused. and would blame just about anybody at this point. this is a social environment that isn't always (or in many areas even remotely) positive, but thankfully we now have so many electronic distractions that most un and underemployed people will take a very long time to become aware of their anger, or at least to focus on it.

cherrywood, the study is appreciated, and I'd be interested in reading more before coming to any conclusion.

For example, cherrywood's parents were "maple" and "fir" -- no mobility whatsoever.

MidtownerEast, leaf cherrywood's parents out of this.

MidtownerEast - why do you continue to post under this name ,rather than under your regular aboutready SE name?

Its not just that one study. Its EVERY study done in the last 20 years. The US has the least income mobility of just about any OECD nation save Mexico.

> Its not just that one study. Its EVERY study done in the last 20 years. The US has the least income mobility of just about any OECD nation save Mexico.

i wouldn't go for the "least", but it stopped being the most mobile some time ago to many EU countries. imho in USA it's still a romantically held notion, but it takes time to update. closely related with mobility is which country is best for kids. USA is not the worst country for kids thanks to the UK (according to UNICEF). nothing to celebrate, but thank you UK for saving some embarrassment.

USA isn't the 1st in per capita income either, but i wouldn't be surprised if many believe that Americans are the "richest".

W, it was this unprovoked comment that I believe started our little back-and-forth. You seem mostly alright by me otherwise - I just never understood why you wrote this:

"Wbottom
about 5 weeks ago
ignore this person
report abuse

one small difference:
sls is generally as he presents himself

despite that sls "sums up" bj's feelings as well as bj "can imagine" their behaviors on the board are completely different

bj engages in right wing trolling generally, as well as aggressive pack-trolling of steve"

>NYCMatt you have completely redeemed your self as a human being here--pleaes, please let it stand!!
>please provide inforamation and recent dietary changes--i will engage immediately

You are definitely not a man.

>Its not just that one study. Its EVERY study done in the last 20 years. The US has the least income mobility of just about any OECD nation save Mexico.

Except the U.S. has greater entrepreneurship than anywhere else in the world.

that's rich, westelle.

Ph41 -- No idea what you are talking about; you are "bark"ing up the wrong tree! (Get it?)

And I hope alanhart's comment will allow this discussion to take root and not branch off.

"Except the U.S. has greater entrepreneurship than anywhere else in the world. "

Apples and pears. We are talking the ability of the poor and lower middle class or their children to become rich. In the US, yes, its easier than most OECD nations to start a successful business....if you are already wealthy or at least upper middle class, however, you are much MUCH MUCH more likely to become rich from this new business. In fact, most self-made men are in fact children of privilege (Bill Gates and Donald Trump are glaring examples.) The statistics bear this out. Being born to wealthy or upper-middle parents gives you the educational opportunities and connections you need to be an entrepreneur...and I mean the type who becomes a millionaire, not a bodega owner.

^^^^To be clear, I mean even if you JUST look at self-made millionaires, you will find an overwhelmingly disproportionate amount were NOT from the bottom 20%.

There is one group of millionaires many of whom were from the bottom 20%. Their ROI probably beat Gates, Buffett, Trump, etc...

Lotto winners.

That basically represent the odds of someone from the bottom becoming a millionaire. On the other hand, the odds of getting to the middle class is pretty good relative to other countries. Stay in school kids!

It's taken almost as a given today that good middle-class jobs are threatened by the twin toxins of technology and globalization.

This dark vision of a dwindling moderate-income job base has become so conventional that opinion leaders at every spot on the ideological spectrum rail against trade. You're just as likely to hear an anti- trade "populist" diatribe from a conservative talk-show host as from a union leader.

But is there any truth in these claims? Does media coverage of "outsourcing" represent an accurate portrait of a middle-class job market gone bust?

First, let's just point out the obvious. There certainly are jobs headed overseas. If you want to see proof of that, just take a drive through a town in Michigan or upstate New York that's been emptied out because a local plant packed up and sent its business to a cheaper factory half a world away.

But in taking a look at the larger impact as part of research being done by the Progressive Policy Institute, I found something rarely noticed in the media: The American middle-class job base has actually grown -- even as trade has surged and new workers have flooded the market. In short, trade hasn't caused wholesale job loss.

The American economy is a vast, complex entity, and in formulating policy it is important to separate assumptions from facts.

The past 30 or so years have undeniably been a period of vast economic change in which many companies have had to revamp or relocate operations at the expense of their stateside employment base. At the same time, in the economy as a whole, other businesses have emerged or expanded, hiring new employees.

Nationwide, the gains have outweighed the losses. This is borne out by state-level economic statistics showing that every state in the union has enjoyed substantial job and income growth over the last 12 years.

This shows that state economies -- even in the so-called Rust Belt areas of the Northeast and Midwest -- have done well enough to offset the decline in employment associated with offshoring and outsourcing.

It is interesting to note the role of gender in determining which workers were more likely to gain middle-class jobs as trade grew. Women have experienced a sharp increase in middle-class employment. As recently as 28 years ago, more than 60 percent of female workers were in jobs that paid less than $25,000, and only 3 percent earned more than $50,000 a year. By contrast, more than 36 percent of jobs that opened since 1979 for women pay more than $50,000.

This represents an economic and social shift of historic proportions, though it must be noted that American women still trail their male counterparts in pay for comparable work.

For men, the growth in trade has been a more ambivalent phenomenon. Well-educated men have fared well. There was a substantial rise in the share of male workers earning more than $75,000, thanks to growth in managerial and professional sectors.

-Stephen Rose

many of the most common assumptions about the health of the middle-class and the state of the economy are actually not supported by the data. In refuting the myths put forward by “gloom-and-doomers,” I will show that socioeconomic analysis requires great care if one is to avoid simplistic apples-and-oranges comparisons. Because so many things are changing at the same time (e.g., increased labor-force participation of women, increased prevalence of single-adult households, and improved access to education), it is necessary to be rigorous in isolating the true causes and effects of economic forces.

Did most of America's income gains go to richest ten percent?
For now, let me briefly confront the claim that “all of the income gains over the last several decades have gone to the richest 10 percent of the population”. This is certainly an understandable conclusion when we hear so much about the billions of dollars accumulated by CEO’s, entertainers, and top financiers. But one must remember that this is a small slice of the population.

Let's start with a back-of-the-envelope calculation to estimate where the gains in income have gone. From 1979 to 2007, the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per person has grown by 63 percent (note 1 ). This means that the 1979 GDP was 61 percent of the current GDP (1/1.63 = .61).

In 1979, 30 percent of all U.S. income went to the ten percent of the population who earned the highest incomes. That left 70 percent of all income for the remaining 90 percent of the population. If all the growth since then went to that top ten percent, the other 90 percent would now have only 43 percent of current US income (.70*.61=.43). Conversely, the remaining 57 percent of total income would now go to the richest ten percent of the population.

In other words, the top ten percent's share of total U.S. income today would be 57 percent. This figure is considerably out of the range of percentage estimates for growth (all in the mid thirties) from many other data sources (the Current Population Survey, the March Supplement, the Panel on Income Dynamics, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation), and in the case of Bartels claim that 80 percent of growth went to richest one percent, it would mean that virtually no other Americans experienced increases in their standards of living over the last 25 years.

Where did the growth go?
This leaves the question — where did the growth go? In a paper published by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, I address this question and allocate the growth dividend from 1979 to 2005.

According to published census data, for those years, real median household income adjusted for inflation was up by 13 percent — which is considerably lower than the 63 percent rise of real GDP per person. But by adjusting the data to reflect the household demographics of 1979, a very different story emerges (note 2).

Since the late 1970s there has been a substantial decline in the number of adults living in husband-wife couples. At the same time, there was a small rise in the share of single adults with children and a large rise in the number of single adults living alone (primarily adults in their twenties and those over the age of 70). Thus, while GDP per capita was up by 63 percent, personal income per household rose by just 48 percent. This reflects the fact that newer households were small and tended to have relatively low incomes; fewer people per household means that household income is not going to increase as much as per capita income.

After adjusting for demographic changes and for rising employee benefits (counted in GDP accounts but not by the Census Bureau), median household incomes rose by 33 percent rather than 13 percent over these 26 years. If the median (the number where half of households earn more and half earn less) was the same as the mean (the average household), then the median household income would have increased 48 percent. Thus households above the median (the richer half) did rise faster than 48 percent — but it is also clear that not all the growth went to the top decile. A substantial part of the growth dividend was shared by the masses of the middle class.

It is, perhaps, no surprise that for all its popularity with the pundits, the "vanishing middle class" meme doesn't quite have a purchase on the public: According to a 2008 Pew Research Center survey on intergenerational mobility, two out of three Americans who describe themselves as middle class rate their standard of living as better than that of their parents.

-Stephen Rose

But wealth is not a zero-sum game, and bigger incomes for top earners doesn't mean they're taking money from everybody else, which is how the enrichment of the upper class is often portrayed. What it means is the wealthy are benefiting the most from the modern U.S. economy. The reason is mostly education, which has become vital as the economy has shifted from an industrial one based on manual and skilled labor to a service economy based on knowledge. We're still in the midst of that transition, which is a big reason that earnings for most income groups have fallen over the last 10 years: Too many American workers, including many in the middle class, have outdated skills that are in lower and lower demand. The inevitable result is falling pay for their services.

An unmistakable lesson from these income trends is that more than ever, education is the pathway to prosperity. Top earners aren't earning proportionately more because they're taking it from lower earners. They're earning more because in a global economy, they have the right skills to compete effectively with workers the world over. "Blaming the rich for earning more is like getting a C and blaming the people who get an A," says Southern Methodist University professor Michael Cox, former chief economist for the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. "As the rewards for education go up, people who don't get educated don't share in the gains the way more educated people do."

- Rick Newman

> But wealth is not a zero-sum game,

But the increase can really only come from productivity increases, which are nowhere near the wealth increases. Ultimately, there are goods and resources to be consumed, and if you aren't making more of them than before, one person getting more means someone else is getting less.

I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
from the squalor and the filth and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That's why i love mankind"

The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said "Lord the plague is on the world
Lord no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won't take care of us
Won't you please please let us be?"

And the Lord said
And the Lord said

"I burn down your cities--how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You must all be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why i love mankind
You really need me
That's why i love mankind"

- Randy Newman

dang, alan. harsh. i was very much enjoying your wordsmithing to cw and now this.....

Kid, next time I say let's go someplace like Bolivia, let's go someplace like Bolivia.

-Paul Newman

that's a very good point, liccomment. today, Mr.J6P is not only competing with his much cheaper counterpart far far away, he is also competing with Mrs. J6P, and his sisters, Ms. J6P1, Ms. J6P2 and Ms. J6P3 for his job.

"According to a 2008 Pew Research Center survey on intergenerational mobility, two out of three Americans who describe themselves as middle class rate their standard of living as better than that of their parents."

i read this a lot, but what does it really tell us? people today have more and better stuff, that's obviously true. don't you think when people are comparing themselves to their parents, they are really comparing their stuff? in my humble opinion, the only reasonably informative way to compare intergenerational lifestyles is comparing how much of their time people spent working and vacationing. time off may be even more important, as that tells not only how much actually harder our lives are today than theirs were, but the fact that the last few generations of americans can only be described as masochists. the whys and hows aside for a minute (channeling mattnyc here), try telling an educated woman that she's doesn't HAVE to deny her natural maternal instincts which have ensured the survival of our species as long as you believe we've been around, and live her life like a man with lady bits. gloria steinem was probably not a cia plant, but you can't deny some of that sounds very very right.

rangersfan, what did you do? are you a troll? geez, think you know someone

"That basically represent the odds of someone from the bottom becoming a millionaire. On the other hand, the odds of getting to the middle class is pretty good relative to other countries. Stay in school kids!"

Its easier to to climb into the middle class from the lower 20% in most other OECD countries. The main culprit: public schools are more equal (and often nationally IDENTICAL in Japan or France, say) elsewhere.

"An unmistakable lesson from these income trends is that more than ever, education is the pathway to prosperity"

education can also be the pathway to crippling student debt, wasted years on useless degrees and a lifetime of entitled resentment. and the blind promotion of this "unmistakable lesson" to any and everyone can lead to things like 50K/yr college tuition.

LICComment, that's some interesting analysis, but fails in a couple of places. First, let's look at the claim that "all of the income couldn't have gone to the top top 10%!!! They would have 57% of all income!!! Impossible!!!"

You'll note that the author does not bother to state what percent of income the top 10% actually does control. That's because it's grown from his 30% baseline to nearly 50% (see http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/2265681/2266033/100902_GD_Part1_PikettySaez-fig1.gif), so by that author's own proposed metric the top 10% have captured something like two thirds of the growth over the past thirty years.

The author also ignores the possibility that GDP growth could go somewhere other than incomes; in particular, GDP growth could go to corporate profits rather than personal income. I don't have data on this one way or the other, but his analysis is definitely incomplete in this regard.

There's a giant hole in his second argument, where he notes: "Thus households above the median (the richer half) did rise faster than 48 percent — but it is also clear that not all the growth went to the top decile. A substantial part of the growth dividend was shared by the masses of the middle class." But there's nothing to substantiate the second part of his claim, and if you look at the data on wages (as opposed to household income) it's clear that's he's wrong.

The second author adds nothing of value. In fact, the first paragraph contradicts itself, starting off with "bigger incomes for top earners doesn't mean they're taking money from everybody else" while going on to point out " earnings for most income groups have fallen over the last 10 years". So while it's true that there doesn't have to be a zero sum game, in this case it seems like there is. There's no substantive analysis to demonstrate that lack of education is the drag on wages for most groups, and the data presented in the Atlantic article I posted upthread has already debunked this point. The author seems not to realize that income has been fairly stagnant even for well-educated people outside of the top 10%.

ar
"lucille, you're on quite the roll. cherrywood, exactly. the horatio alger myth is just that, a myth. but our society seems to love it"

ar, yes, i'm on a roll. i've been stuck at home training a puppy, and now a jealous toddler, to poop where they're supposed.
it's not just our society that believes this myth. a gazzillion immigrants can't be wrong.

lucille, you really have to stop stalking me. btw, think the puppy just took a dump in your knitting basket. cheers.

oh i see, i hit ignore you by accident. phew, like to think i have a pretty good handle on who the character actors are. nevermind.

Lucille -- Seeing as how you are already cleaning up dumps, perhaps you could include the last three LICComment posts?

what's wrong with his posts?

that's the nice thing about babies, human and otherwise. babies make poopies. by the time they make dumps they can usually do it themselves.

that's why god made babies cute, you know

It will be in the low 60s for the next three weeks in Napa, Danville, and San Francisco - and today its a high of 67 in San Jose. Yes, I am still harping on those who denied that the Bay Area has a Mediterranean climate.

perseverance!

Bay Area doesn't have a Mediterranean climate.

Jason, the internet has already answered this question.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080602110422AAAPVFj

Resolved Question
Is San Francisco damp and humid in the summer time?

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters
The fog can be damp and cold. But we barely notice the humidity because the wind moving the fog in keeps the air moving. Summers in SF are cool, the trick is layers.

We natives can spot the tourists, they are the ones shivering in shorts and the SF Fleece jacket they had to buy to keep from freezing!

"Bay Area doesn't have a Mediterranean climate."

You are an idiot.

As for Mediterranean climate - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_climate

"Most large, historic cities of the Mediterranean basin, including Athens, Barcelona, Beirut, Jerusalem, Marseille and Rome, lie within Mediterranean climatic zones, as do major cities outside of the Mediterranean, such as Cape Town, Los Angeles, Adelaide, Perth, San Francisco and Santiago de Chile."

Also proof positive: Wine Country in NORTH of San Francisco. Because Napa's climate is like...wait for it...the Mediterranean.

"Wine regions with Mediterranean climates

Wine regions with Mediterranean climates

* Tuscany and most other Italian wine regions
* Most Greek wine regions
* Most Israeli wine regions
* Most Lebanese wine regions
* Southern Rhone Valley
* Catalonia
* Languedoc
* Provence
* Coastal Portuguese wine region
* Primorska Slovenian wine region
* Napa Valley and other coastal California wine regions {!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
* Western Australia and South Australia wine regions
* Most Chilean wine regions
* Coastal South African wine regions"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_climate_%28wine%29#Wine_regions_with_Mediterranean_climates

The US National Park Service says SF's Presidio is in a Mediterranean zone: http://www.nps.gov/prsf/naturescience/mediterranean-climate.htm

More on same:

4 days ago "...San Francisco is really more of a temperate-Mediterranean climate...." - The University of California Botanic Gardens at Berkeley

"the San Francisco Bay Area is.... characterized by a moderate Mediterranean climate..." - National Park Service

"The [Bay Area] region has a dry summer subtropical climate, also known as a “Mediterranean” climate." - the Federal Transportation Authority

4 days ago "..The San Francisco Bay Area's Mediterranean climate, with arguably the best (or at least some of the most temperate weather in the world) is ..." - SF Examiner

http://www.examiner.com/sf-in-san-francisco/our-unique-and-fragile-mediterranean-climate

"...Besides the Mediterranean Basin, the regions having a Mediterranean climate include much of California and small parts of the adjacent Pacific Northwest, the Western Cape in South Africa, central Chile, the coastal areas of southern Western Australia and western South Australia....

...As an example, San Francisco in California, USA..." - About.com

4 days ago If you Google either SF or Bay Area and the "Mediterranean Climate", you get over 200,000 hits, including EVERY relevant meteorological, geographic, encyclopedic, academic, journalistic and government sites.

Now will someone please post a link to a reputable source that says otherwise? Look at ANY online encyclopedia. you will NOT find one that does NOT include it as such. Please, go ahead and try.

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/San_francisco_in_fog_with_rays.jpg

"Best Answer - Chosen by Voters
The fog can be damp and cold. But we barely notice the humidity because the wind moving the fog in keeps the air moving. Summers in SF are cool, the trick is layers.

We natives can spot the tourists, they are the ones shivering in shorts and the SF Fleece jacket they had to buy to keep from freezing!"

Its in the 60s in June-August. Not FREEZING. Its freezing because tourists come wearing shorts expecting LA weather.

When the inland cools down, it's in the 70-90s 9even low 100s) with dry heat September-November.

Google the term "Bay Area" or "San Francisco" and "Indian Summer." Its an indian summer - especially on either side of the Golden Gate.

It is, however, ten degrees warmer outside of the touristy areas (say, the Mission district) and 15-20 degrees warmer in San Jose or Danville or Napa June-August.

Jason -- Instead of arguing about the weather, why don't you do something about it?

Yeah, blow up a townhouse in the Village or something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground_Organization

Back to the original topic - back when I did live in SF, people were (correctly) saying SF was for the Rich only. It was the original reverse white flight metro area. Now you have the same in Manhattan, Los Angeles (proper as well as western border cities), DC, Boston...

Still don't believe it. Please post more links to the Bay Area having a Mediterranean climate.

"Still don't believe it. Please post more links to the Bay Area having a Mediterranean climate."

you are either being an idiot or an asshole trying to goad me. I am fine with the National Park Service and National Weather bureau and every encyclopedia saying its so. If you have an academic or government source saying otherwise, please post it. Otherwise you can suck a donkey dick.

> The US National Park Service says SF's Presidio is in a Mediterranean zone:

Again, there are two types of Mediterranean climates, hot summer and cool summer.

Jason, if you are going to quote wikipedia, read the rest.

"The majority of the regions with Mediterranean climates have relatively mild winters and very warm summers. However winter and summer temperatures can vary greatly between different regions with a Mediterranean climate. In the case of winters for instance, Lisbon experiences very mild temperatures in the winter, with frost and snow practically unknown, whereas Thessaloniki has colder winters with annual frosts and snowfall. In the case of summers for instance, Athens experiences rather high temperatures in the summer (48.0°C has been measured in nearby Eleusina). In contrast, San Francisco has mild summers due to the upwelling of cold subsurface waters along the coast producing regular summer fog"

"Unlike typical Mediterranean climates, for the majority of the year, these regions experience generally cloudy, damp and cool conditions."

Trying to align San Fran's properties with areas that are noted as specifically different isn't being accurate.

"Despite the fact that these climates are technically Csb climates, a number of scientists (and others) do not consider the climate “Mediterranean”, primarily because of the predominantly oceanic characteristics that these places exhibit. They are instead categorized as a form of an oceanic climate."

Nice Mediterranean weather today, right Jason10006?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-nader/california-prop-103_b_4282587.html

hey field hamster... they just upped my pay rate! WHOOOT... .$100/post! Fka' yah! How much you getting for trolling?

31 minutes. Losing the faith field hammy.

>they just upped my pay rate! WHOOOT... .$100/post!

Make sure you report all your income:
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/18080-its-official-the-irs-are-morons

I wish Lucille would come back. I've greyed w67th. I am afraid he is trying to get his account deleted and all his comments removed. I just don't get the vulgar side at all, and hope SE does delete the account with all the comments. My next hope is that w67th reincarnates himself in a new persona that reflects his obviously high intelligence and great wit without the vulgarity.

hmm, no reply from w67 for 5 days. Maybe the IRS problems are worst that expected?