Thread: The Fallacy of Income Distribution Arguments or Income inequalities are just and ...

Originally Posted by Mahasattva

....


:rolleyes: Denial is not a river in Egypt. You have failed again and as long as you continue to rely on statistical categories, which count the same people at the bottom quintiles and then count those same people again in the upper quintiles ten years later you will continue to fail. As long as you continue to rely on statistical categories that hides the FACT that there are 64 million people in the upper quintiles (which has more adult workers and more people working per household, more likely to be full-time year-round workers and tend to have a higher education), but only 39 million people in the lower quintiles you will continue to fail.

Congratulations on typing hundreds of words that demonstrate your intellectual dishonesty.

tashi deleks and thank you for playing,

M

"quintile" is one fifth of the sample, there are five quintiles, each quintile contains the same amount of people, I think you just failed....

Originally Posted by Mahasattva

False Goob. Leftist-liberal-Progressives regularly use data on statistical categories to claim that incomes are stagnate or declining, which is false. leftist-liberal-Progressives ignore data on per capita increasing incomes, since those can’t be used to further their ideology. Then there are ignorant leftist-liberal-Progressives who attempt to use per capita increases in income which always refer to individuals and compare those to household/family statistics which never refer to individuals and are always changing over time in size and make up. The intellectual dishonesty of such a comparison is denied when it is challenged.

I see a little fast talk by the right wing bamboozler Sowell has left you bamboozled...

:rolleyes: There has always been an income gap throughout history and its width has always changed depending on changes in the economy, technology and the ways technology is used in the market place. Unless you can prove that the widening of the income gap has been caused by confiscatory taxation or an all powerful elite or a tyrannical government and that this has caused income mobility to become an exception rather than the norm I DO NOT CARE. I know all you are trying to do is salvage a discredited methodology that leftist-liberal-Progressives have used as a moral cudgel in their efforts of class warfare.

The gap we are referring to decreased from 1930 to 1980, and then after the tax rates for the upper brackets were lowered too much, the gap has widened until it is back to where it was in 1929.

Monopolies only occur when the government makes it possible. You find them protected under mercantile and corporatist and socialist and communist and fascist and Progressive regimes. They do not occur in free market capitalist economies.

When you finally take a course in economics it will be an eye opener.

“large profits are a sign of dysfunction” that’s just too sweet, and too stupid. Large profits could never be a sign of efficiency or the delivering of goods and service that in high demand.

Again, you'd need at least some knowledge of economics to understand this

Yea like Galbraith. Could you find someone with more of a track record of being wrong more often? Well, there is Keynes.

Answer the questions you ignored Goob

Explain these facts from: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-cen...3-08revise.pdf As Thomas Sowell reports in Amazon.com: Intellectuals and Society (9780465019489): Thomas Sowell: Books, [I]U. S. Treasury Department data, following specific individuals over time from their tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service, show that in terms of people, the incomes of those particular taxpayers who were in the bottom 20 percent in income rose 91 percent by 2005, while the income of those particular taxpayers who were in the top 20 percent in 1996 rose only 10 percent by 2005 -- and those in the top 5 percent and top one percent actually declined.

Explain these facts presented by the same U.S. Treasury Department study: Among those with the very highest incomes in 1996 – the top 1/100 of 1 percent – only 25 percent remained in this group in 2005. Moreover, the median real income of these taxpayers declined over this period.

You can’t explain these and still maintain your moral angst or use it as a moral cudgel when 75% of those in the top 1/100 of 1 percent in 1996 fell out of that group by 2005.

Again Goob, you don’t know economics nor do you understand statistics. As usual you have shown your brilliance in ideology, but your ignorance in everything else. Come back when you can explain: Explain these facts from: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-cen...3-08revise.pdf As Thomas Sowell reports in Amazon.com: Intellectuals and Society (9780465019489): Thomas Sowell: Books, [I]U. S. Treasury Department data, following specific individuals over time from their tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service, show that in terms of people, the incomes of those particular taxpayers who were in the bottom 20 percent in income rose 91 percent by 2005, while the income of those particular taxpayers who were in the top 20 percent in 1996 rose only 10 percent by 2005 -- and those in the top 5 percent and top one percent actually declined.

Explain these facts presented by the same U.S. Treasury Department study: Among those with the very highest incomes in 1996 – the top 1/100 of 1 percent – only 25 percent remained in this group in 2005. Moreover, the median real income of these taxpayers declined over this period.

Come back when you can tell me why I should concern myself with data on statistical categories that count the same people among the bottom quintiles and then count those same people again in the upper quintiles ten years later.

tashi deleks,

M

What has any of that got to do with an income gap that is growing, and that shifted from a shrinking gap to a growing gap exactly at the time that bad tax policy was adapted?

The data correlates exactly with my hypothesis, and you are hopelessly spewing numbers that you don't understand to disprove some point that you think I am trying to make, but your data only confirms what I said.

Originally Posted by Stangler

Statistical categories help demonstrate trends in income and establish what parts of the economy benefit from income growth.

Please look into the characteristics of those who make up the statistical categories you believe are suffering. Are they younger or older? Do they tend to have little experience and less education than other categories? Do they tend to work full-time or part-time? Are they more likely to work year-round or only seasonally? I would assert that statistical categories do not establish what parts of an economy are benefiting from economic growth. Other information is need to determine that.

Everyone benefits from economic growth. Some may benefit more than others -- due to their location, being first adopters of new technology or new techniques in management, or due to the kind of knowledge that have acquired which becomes more valuable with changes in the structure of an economy, but everyone benefits.

The key to these figures is that they are not about individuals and the changes in their income but the macro economic forces at play.

I have asked you to list these macro economic forces at play

A hard working talented person should be rewarded for their hard work and be rich.

Yet, leftist-liberal-Progressives demonize the rich and want to punish them for their hard work and success.

There is nothing wrong with an income gap.

Especially when you understand that there has always been an income gap and what is important is income mobility.

What is being discussed is changes to the income gap and long term trends that impact the income gap.

You have yet to list any of the factors or trends that impact the income gap today that have not been in place since humanity began trading.

So what can be considered is the economic forces that are put on wages and the nature of income growth for the wealthy.

List the forces that have changed the “nature of income” for everyone please. As I have already shown and proved there is neither an enduring class of wealthy always to remain wealthy, nor an enduring class of poor always to remain poor.

One thing that is obvious to any economist is that capitalism favors the capitalist.

:rolleyes: Capitalism favors and benefits everyone. Capitalism is not an “ism” like a political “ism.” Capitalism is simply an economic system where individuals are able to engage in transactions of free exchanged to their mutual benefit without third party control or interference. Capitalism is not, for example, an “ism” like mercantilism, where mercantilism favors the mercantilist, who has been given the exclusive rights of ownership or the exclusive monopoly of a sector of the economy from on high. In a free market capitalist economy a capitalist has earned their economic position by supplying the goods or services other people voluntarily compensated them. In a free market capitalist economy no capitalist can force others to buy their goods or services at the point of a gun or by governmental authority. In a mercantilist economic system that can happen and is likely to happen. Also Capitalism is not like other societal organizations like feudalism or aristocracies where the overlords are free to benefit while the serfs lack freedom and suffer.

This has been talked about since before Adam Smith. What this basically means is that it is better to own the production of your own labor and the production of the labor of others through your own ownership of the means of production.

I own the production of my own labor, be that my hands, my back, or my brains. I, so to speak, lease the production of my own labor to others who have invested the necessary time, work, effort, and capital which will increase my productivity by several factors then it would without that necessary capital. We both benefit from this exchange, in this case of services.

Simply put, if you own a factory you can hire people at a rate that is less than the value of the production made. A factory can be replaced by any investment.

A person does not magically “own a factory,” unless the economic system they are in happens to be mercantile where that person has been given the factory or the rights to build that factory from on high. For a person to “own a factory” in a free market capitalist economic system they will have worked hard and long hours to acquire the capital, organized the necessary workers (having also acquired the reserves to pay them a wage they are willing to accept) to build and eventual work in that factory. The reason those workers are hired “at a rate that is less than the value of the production made” has to do with the fact that it is the combination of both their labor and the capital investment of the owner with the organizational structure he has put into place at the factory that allows the production to occur at all and in the end leads to its value -- that is as long as it is a good others consider valuable. If it wasn’t for the capital investment and the organizational structure of the owner of production, the labor of that worker would not be as productive or as valuable.

It is important to create an incentive to buy factories and own capital and our economy rewards both. This benefit by its nature builds upon itself. The power of compound interest results in this reward multiplying exponentially over time.

Yep, and no owner of production has the power to restrict or deny their workers to benefit from compound interests. All that worker needs to do is limit their expenses and save their earnings.

The other factor is the downward pressure on labor or large segments of our labor force combined with inflation in specific categories which impact different income groups differently.

Inflation is a problem for everyone except those who owe on debts, since it allows them to pay their debt with money that is less valuable.

For example inflation in health care impacts the bottom 50% more than the top 50% as a % of their income.

The increase cost of health care has much more to do with the negative impact of third party payers and the involvement of an over reaching government. Medicare and Medicaid has driven up costs considerably in medical care industry, much more than inflation, to the detriment of all consumers.

What this issue boils down to is changes in real wages for the decile groups.

Again, please look into the characteristics of those who make up the statistical categories you believe are suffering. Are they younger or older? Do they tend to have little experience and less education than other categories? Do they tend to work full-time or part-time? Are they more likely to work year-round or only seasonally? I would assert that statistical categories do not establish what parts of an economy are benefiting from economic growth. Other information is need to make that determination.

Your so-called forces or trends have been in place since the first tribes met and traded meat for grain.

tashi deleks,

M

Originally Posted by goober

"quintile" is one fifth of the sample, there are five quintiles, each quintile contains the same amount of people, I think you just failed....

There you go again Goob, showing your ignorance of statistics and economics. The claim that each quintile contains the same amount of people is completely false. As I stated in Part 3 of the OP

Originally Posted by Mahasattva

As I have posted before,

“The only way this data would be meaningful is if it reflected the same people over time and if each quintile represented the same age, ethnicity, education level, and number of people. They don’t. As Thomas Sowell writes in his Amazon.com: Basic Economics 4th Ed: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (9780465022526): Thomas Sowell: Books Family income or household income are not like individual income. An individual always means the same thing -- one person -- but the sizes of families and households differ substantially from one time period to another, from one racial or ethnic group to another, from one income bracket to another. For example, there are 39 million people in the bottom 20 percent of households, but 64 million people in the top 20 percent of households. Although many people assume that these quintiles represent dividing the country into ‘five equal layers,’ as two economists have misstated it, there is nothing equal about these layers. They represent grossly different numbers of people.
These differences in the sizes of families and households are not incidental. They radically change the meaning of “income distribution” statistics that are thrown around in the media and in politics. For example, real income per American household rose only 6 percent over the entire period from 1969 to 1996, but real per capita income rose 51 percent over the same period. The average size of families and households was simply declining, so that smaller households were now earning about the same as larger households had earned a generation earlier. … When two people in one household today earn the same total amount of money that three people were earning in that household in the past, that is a 50 percent increase in income per person -- even when household income remains the same.
It is equally misleading to compare high-income families or households with low income families and households. There are more people per family in the upper income families compared to lower families -- and more of those people work. That is part of the reason for some families having higher incomes than others. It is not uncommon for families in the top 20 percent of income-earners to supply several times as many man-hours of work per year as families in the bottom 20 percent. Many of the latter work very little or not at all, whether due to illness, retirement, single mothers raising children on welfare, or for other reasons. Yet, plain facts like these are often omitted by those who speak and write of how “society” unequally or unfairly “distributes” its income. A closer look at these households reveals that those in the top quintile contain more than 40 million people of working age -- 18 to 64 years of age -- while the bottom quintile contains fewer than 20 million people in such age brackets.
Perhaps the most radical difference between individual and family or household statistics are those used when comparing different American racial or ethnic groups. For example, real income per black household rose only 7 percent in the two decades from 1967 to 1988, but real per capita income among blacks rose 81 percent over those very same years. Average black household size was simply declining during these decades, so that a substantial increase in real income per person appeared statistically as a trivially small increase per household. Moreover, because black household size was declining more sharply than white household size, black incomes appeared to be falling behind white incomes when household statistics were used, but were in fact rising faster than white incomes when individual statistics are examined.
For both blacks and whites, rising prosperity was one reason for more people to be able to go set up their own individual households, instead of continuing to live with parents or as roomers or by sharing an apartment with a roommate. Yet these consequences of prosperity generate household statistics that are widely used to suggest that there has been no real economic progress

Sowell, goes on to point out that age “makes a big difference in income -- and a huge difference in wealth.” And he points out that “Although people in the top income brackets and the bottom income brackets -- “the rich” and “the poor,” as they are commonly called -- may be discussed as if they were different classes of people, often they are the very same people at different stages of their lives. An absolute majority of people in the bottom percent in income in 1975 were also in the top 20 percent at some point over the next 17 years.”

One response to the above was an ad hominem attack on Sowell‘s intelligence, which is laughable considering Sowell‘s academic credentials and the depth of his scholarship over the decades. There was no attempt to directly challenge the facts presented. At the request of the poster I provided the sources for Sowell’s conclusions. No comment was made about those sources in any further replies. Here are those sources found on page 351 of Amazon.com: Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy (9780465081387): Thomas Sowell: Books “The misleading claim that income quintiles divide the country into five equal parts was made on page 48 of Economics Explained by Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow. Data on household incomes are from a U.S. Bureau of the Census serial publication, Current Population Reports, P-23-196, with its individual title being Changes in Median Household Income: 1969 to 1996. http://www.census.gov/prod/3/98pubs/p23-196.pdf Data on people’s changing income between 1975 and 1991 are from pages 8 and 22 of the 1995 Annual Report of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. http://www.dallasfed.org/fed/annual/1999p/ar95.pdf Earlier studies indicating similar patterns include Years of Poverty, Years of Plenty by Greg Duncan et al, published by University of Michigan Press.
Amazon.com: Years of Poverty, Years of Plenty: The Changing Economic Fortunes of American Workers and Families (An Institute for Social Research Publication) (9780472007028): Greg J. Duncan, Richard D. Coe, Mary E. Corcoran, Martha S. Hill, Saul D. H

Another source for the different population levels within the different quintiles can be found here: http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/1999/pdf/cda99-07.pdf p. 11. Along with a nice graph that organizes the information.

Please continue playing Goob, it really is hilarious watching your prat falls.

tashi deleks,

M

In the post 2008 world, the US has lost economic growth despite tax cuts and unaudited large corp auditing.
I can't believe anybody with half a brain could even participate in such a disingenuous discussion.

Originally Posted by Mahasattva

Please look into the characteristics of those who make up the statistical categories you believe are suffering. Are they younger or older? Do they tend to have little experience and less education than other categories? Do they tend to work full-time or part-time? Are they more likely to work year-round or only seasonally? I would assert that statistical categories do not establish what parts of an economy are benefiting from economic growth. Other information is need to determine that.

Everyone benefits from economic growth. Some may benefit more than others -- due to their location, being first adopters of new technology or new techniques in management, or due to the kind of knowledge that have acquired which becomes more valuable with changes in the structure of an economy, but everyone benefits.



I have asked you to list these macro economic forces at play



Yet, leftist-liberal-Progressives demonize the rich and want to punish them for their hard work and success.



Especially when you understand that there has always been an income gap and what is important is income mobility.



You have yet to list any of the factors or trends that impact the income gap today that have not been in place since humanity began trading.



List the forces that have changed the “nature of income” for everyone please. As I have already shown and proved there is neither an enduring class of wealthy always to remain wealthy, nor an enduring class of poor always to remain poor.



:rolleyes: Capitalism favors and benefits everyone. Capitalism is not an “ism” like a political “ism.” Capitalism is simply an economic system where individuals are able to engage in transactions of free exchanged to their mutual benefit without third party control or interference. Capitalism is not, for example, an “ism” like mercantilism, where mercantilism favors the mercantilist, who has been given the exclusive rights of ownership or the exclusive monopoly of a sector of the economy from on high. In a free market capitalist economy a capitalist has earned their economic position by supplying the goods or services other people voluntarily compensated them. In a free market capitalist economy no capitalist can force others to buy their goods or services at the point of a gun or by governmental authority. In a mercantilist economic system that can happen and is likely to happen. Also Capitalism is not like other societal organizations like feudalism or aristocracies where the overlords are free to benefit while the serfs lack freedom and suffer.



I own the production of my own labor, be that my hands, my back, or my brains. I, so to speak, lease the production of my own labor to others who have invested the necessary time, work, effort, and capital which will increase my productivity by several factors then it would without that necessary capital. We both benefit from this exchange, in this case of services.



A person does not magically “own a factory,” unless the economic system they are in happens to be mercantile where that person has been given the factory or the rights to build that factory from on high. For a person to “own a factory” in a free market capitalist economic system they will have worked hard and long hours to acquire the capital, organized the necessary workers (having also acquired the reserves to pay them a wage they are willing to accept) to build and eventual work in that factory. The reason those workers are hired “at a rate that is less than the value of the production made” has to do with the fact that it is the combination of both their labor and the capital investment of the owner with the organizational structure he has put into place at the factory that allows the production to occur at all and in the end leads to its value -- that is as long as it is a good others consider valuable. If it wasn’t for the capital investment and the organizational structure of the owner of production, the labor of that worker would not be as productive or as valuable.



Yep, and no owner of production has the power to restrict or deny their workers to benefit from compound interests. All that worker needs to do is limit their expenses and save their earnings.



Inflation is a problem for everyone except those who owe on debts, since it allows them to pay their debt with money that is less valuable.



The increase cost of health care has much more to do with the negative impact of third party payers and the involvement of an over reaching government. Medicare and Medicaid has driven up costs considerably in medical care industry, much more than inflation, to the detriment of all consumers.



Again, please look into the characteristics of those who make up the statistical categories you believe are suffering. Are they younger or older? Do they tend to have little experience and less education than other categories? Do they tend to work full-time or part-time? Are they more likely to work year-round or only seasonally? I would assert that statistical categories do not establish what parts of an economy are benefiting from economic growth. Other information is need to make that determination.

Your so-called forces or trends have been in place since the first tribes met and traded meat for grain.

tashi deleks,

M

Capitalism favors the capitalist. This is a fact. What is being discussed is how this fact impacts the fact that the income gap is growing. You failed to address either of these facts.

You keep bringing up the difference between the various deciles but keep failing to realize that the comparison being made is really the top 1% to the top 1% at different points of time. You don't understand the nature of the statistical analysis that is happening.

You typed a lot and there is really nothing relevant there. When you try and declare things you are not really on topic or what you are declaring as a truth simply isn't. You type a lot and all of it could be refuted but that would be tedious.

Originally Posted by goober

Originally Posted by Mahasattva
False Goob. Leftist-liberal-Progressives regularly use data on statistical categories to claim that incomes are stagnate or declining, which is false. leftist-liberal-Progressives ignore data on per capita increasing incomes, since those can’t be used to further their ideology. Then there are ignorant leftist-liberal-Progressives who attempt to use per capita increases in income which always refer to individuals and compare those to household/family statistics which never refer to individuals and are always changing over time in size and make up. The intellectual dishonesty of such a comparison is denied when it is challenged.

I see a little fast talk by the right wing bamboozler Sowell has left you bamboozled...

Ah, no. Facts and a cogent and concise explanation of those facts is what makes the difference. But since the facts and a cogent and concise explanation of those facts does not agree with your cherished dogma, you find it necessary to engage in an ad hominem attack on Sowell, who unlike your hero Galbraith, is more often right than wrong.

I wrote: :rolleyes: There has always been an income gap throughout history and its width has always changed depending on changes in the economy, technology and the ways technology is used in the market place. Unless you can prove that the widening of the income gap has been caused by confiscatory taxation or an all powerful elite or a tyrannical government and that this has caused income mobility to become an exception rather than the norm I DO NOT CARE. I know all you are trying to do is salvage a discredited methodology that leftist-liberal-Progressives have used as a moral cudgel in their efforts of class warfare.

The gap we are referring to decreased from 1930 to 1980, and then after the tax rates for the upper brackets were lowered too much, the gap has widened until it is back to where it was in 1929.

Again, so what? The economic pie has been increasing and while the income gap is widening, IN TERMS OF STATISTICAL CATEGORIES, everyone’s income has increased. I have already provided the proof, and since you quote it in this post I shall not repost it AGAIN.

I wrote: Monopolies only occur when the government makes it possible. You find them protected under mercantile and corporatist and socialist and communist and fascist and Progressive regimes. They do not occur in free market capitalist economies.

When you finally take a course in economics it will be an eye opener.

:rolleyes: Each of us are free to have our own opinion, but facts negate most of them and validate only a few. When you, if you, ever drop your ideological blinders and allow the facts to lead you to your conclusions it will be more than just an eye opener -- it will be a life changer.

I wrote: “large profits are a sign of dysfunction” that’s just too sweet, and too stupid. Large profits could never be a sign of efficiency or the delivering of goods and service that in high demand.

Again, you'd need at least some knowledge of economics to understand this

:rolleyes: Goob, my seven year old, as most children, will pronounce how they know this or that with complete confidence and conviction. Pointing out that he does not “know” that much about this or that does little good in convincing him that he does not know. When it is proved to him, usually by the way of the internet or a dictionary, so it comes from a third party, he pouts and gets in a little funk. I tell him that its not a problem to be “wrong” as long as you're willing to recognize you are wrong, correct your flawed thinking and move on. We all learn more through our mistakes rather than by our victories. Its human nature. My son, thankfully, has shown a level of maturity to accept that. Sadly it appears that my seven year old son is more mature than you are in this area. Well, sad for you, not so much for my son.

I wrote: Yea like Galbraith. Could you find someone with more of a track record of being wrong more often? Well, there is Keynes.

Answer the questions you ignored Goob

Explain these facts from: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-cen...3-08revise.pdf As Thomas Sowell reports in Amazon.com: Intellectuals and Society, U. S. Treasury Department data, following specific individuals over time from their tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service, show that in terms of people, [/b]the incomes of those particular taxpayers who were in the bottom 20 percent in income rose 91 percent by 2005, while the income of those particular taxpayers who were in the top 20 percent in 1996 rose only 10 percent by 2005 -- and those in the top 5 percent and top one percent actually declined.[/b]

Explain these facts presented by the same U.S. Treasury Department study: Among those with the very highest incomes in 1996 – the top 1/100 of 1 percent – only 25 percent remained in this group in 2005. Moreover, the median real income of these taxpayers declined over this period.

You can’t explain these and still maintain your moral angst or use it as a moral cudgel when 75% of those in the top 1/100 of 1 percent in 1996 fell out of that group by 2005.
Again Goob, you don’t know economics nor do you understand statistics. As usual you have shown your brilliance in ideology, but your ignorance in everything else. Come back when you can explain: Explain these facts from: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-cen...3-08revise.pdf As Thomas Sowell reports in Amazon.com: Intellectuals and Society (9780465019489): Thomas Sowell: Books, [I]U. S. Treasury Department data, following specific individuals over time from their tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service, show that in terms of people, the incomes of those particular taxpayers who were in the bottom 20 percent in income rose 91 percent by 2005, while the income of those particular taxpayers who were in the top 20 percent in 1996 rose only 10 percent by 2005 -- and those in the top 5 percent and top one percent actually declined.

Explain these facts presented by the same U.S. Treasury Department study: [b]Among those with the very highest incomes in 1996 – the top 1/100 of 1 percent – only 25 percent remained in this group in 2005. Moreover, the median real income of these taxpayers declined over this period.

Come back when you can tell me why I should concern myself with data on statistical categories that count the same people among the bottom quintiles and then count those same people again in the upper quintiles ten years later.

What has any of that got to do with an income gap that is growing,

The income gap is growing ONLY IN TERMS OF STATISTICAL CATEGORIES. In terms of per capita income and in ALL studies that track individuals and even individual families ALL incomes have increased and have increased faster for those in the bottom 20 percent.

and that shifted from a shrinking gap to a growing gap exactly at the time that bad tax policy was adapted?

FALSE Goob. First Goob, you begin with the conclusion that the Reagan tax policies were bad and then seek out whatever data that you can find that confirms that conclusion. Second, you see the widening income gap, IN TERMS OF STATISTICAL CATEGORIES, and believe it indicates falling income levels for those in the bottom quintiles. It does not. Incomes for all quintiles have risen, as the U.S. Treasury Department study showed. Your errors are not just that you believe that

Originally Posted by goober

each quintile contains the same amount of people,

which skews your analysis since even if every one made the exact same income, a group consisting of 64 million will ALWAYS make more than a group made up of 39 million. But you also believe in the zero-sum fallacy of economics. In your mind the only way the rich could get richer is if the poor have gotten poorer. The facts contradict that claim. You not recognize the fact that the economic pie has greatly expanded and even with, from a statistical categorical perspective, the lower quintiles are receiving a smaller slice of the pie in relation to the other slices, that slice is still larger than the one they used to get.

The data correlates exactly with my hypothesis,

False. I have asked several times: Explain these facts from: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-cen...3-08revise.pdf As Thomas Sowell reports in Intellectuals and Society, “U. S. Treasury Department data, following specific individuals over time from their tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service, show that in terms of people, the incomes of those particular taxpayers who were in the bottom 20 percent in income rose 91 percent by 2005, while the income of those particular taxpayers who were in the top 20 percent in 1996 rose only 10 percent by 2005 -- and those in the top 5 percent and top one percent actually declined.

Explain these facts presented by the same U.S. Treasury Department study: Among those with the very highest incomes in 1996 – the top 1/100 of 1 percent – only 25 percent remained in this group in 2005. Moreover, the median real income of these taxpayers declined over this period.

To repeat your claim

The data correlates exactly with my hypothesis,

You invest moral angst in the widening income gap, which is seen only in terms of statistical categories, yet the above data which tracked real individual people shows that the incomes of those in the bottom 20 percent in 1996 rose 91 percent by 2005, BUT the income of those in the top 20 percent in 1996 rose only 10 percent by 2005. Clearly the evidence shows that the incomes of the bottom 20 percent rose faster than the incomes of those in the top 20 percent -- 81 percent faster. And again from the same study, 75 percent of those who were counted among the top 1/100 of 1 percent in 1996 fell from that level by 2005.
Please can you explain the convoluted logic you are using to assert that the above data correlates exactly with your hypothesis?

and you are hopelessly spewing numbers that you don't understand to disprove some point that you think I am trying to make, but your data only confirms what I said.

:rolleyes: Let me try, AGAIN: None of the data I have provided in this thread recommends any particular tax policy. To repeat: None of the data I have provided in this thread confirms or denies that worthiness of a progressive tax structure or a flat tax system or a fair tax. To determine which tax policy is the most efficient you would need to collect different data that compares the effects of changes in the tax rates of the different kinds of tax structures and under what conditions.

The data I have provided in this thread proves that IN TERMS OF PER CAPITA INCOMES or in studies that track INDIVIDUALS OR INDIVIDUAL FALMILIES all brackets have seen an increase in incomes. PERIOD. ONLY IN TERMS OF STATISTICAL CATEGORIES DO WE SEE A WIDENING INCOME GAP. There are several reasons why this occurs. A few are: 1) the widening income gap in STATISTICAL CATEGORIES is due to a statistical anomaly (refer to three-part OP) which makes it appear that the rich are getting richer, even though the incomes of the lower brackets are rising faster than the rich. 2) the widening income gap has to do with the fact that there are more people in the upper quintiles (64 million), and almost half as much in the lower quintiles (39 million) even though you‘d like to deny that fact. Related to that, those in the upper quintiles tend to be older adults in their peak earning years; have more people working per household; tend to have a higher level of education; and those in the upper quintiles are more likely to be full-time year-round workers, which means they work more hours. 3) the development of new technology widens the income gap, since early adopters receive the most benefit of its use and are able to enhance their income by applying that new technology to old problems. 4) changes in how old technology is applied to both old and new circumstances enhance income growth (new approaches in the manner we use telecommunications and the media has directly contributed to the growth of incomes of many entertainers and sports stars, from Tom Hanks to Oprah to Lady Gaga to Tiger Woods). 5) new financial instruments have directly contributed to the ways (and yes, I do mean that in the plural) capital can be accumulated to invest in new businesses and new markets (and no I am not referring to derivatives).

Now I understand that you, and others, who are enamored with the leftist-Progressive statist vision, wish to use statistical categories, since they hide the facts I mention above, as a moral cudgel in your efforts of class warfare, and I understand that the data I have presented directly challenges the veracity of using statistical categories as a moral cudgel and you find that a bit difficult to deal with. My advice … learn to deal with it. Understand that every time you attempt to use the widening income gap, which is only seen in terms of statistical categories and is not the experience of real flesh and blood people, as a moral cudgel to wage your class warfare you will be proving your intellectual dishonesty to all those who know the truth.

tashi deleks and please feel free to play again,

M

Originally Posted by Mahasattva

There you go again Goob, showing your ignorance of statistics and economics. The claim that each quintile contains the same amount of people is completely false. As I stated in Part 3 of the OP
....
tashi deleks,

M

LOL, you're argument isn't with me, it's with the dictionary.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/quintile
See, unlike you, I actually took statistics, and 4 semesters of economics.

Originally Posted by Stangler

Capitalism favors the capitalist. This is a fact.

Capitalism favors everyone, especially if you compare it to any other economic system to date. That is a fact. Name any other economic system that favors more people and has benefited more people without infringing on the rights and freedoms of other people. There is none. PERIOD. Then again, if you embrace a skewed definition of what capitalism is and what it means, then I guess you could make any statement about it.

What is being discussed is how this fact impacts the fact that the income gap is growing. You failed to address either of these facts.

I addressed the issues brought up. You begin with false premises and are up set when I point out their falseness and address the issues directly in a manner you cannot accept.

You keep bringing up the difference between the various deciles but keep failing to realize that the comparison being made is really the top 1% to the top 1% at different points of time.

Who are different people living under very different conditions. Unless the top 1% are the same people today as were yesterday, or are their heirs -- I do not care. To rephrase and turn around what I asked above: Please look into the characteristics of those who make up the statistical categories you believe are benefiting. Are they younger or older? Do they tend to have more experience and more education than other categories? Do they tend to work full-time or part-time? Are they more likely to work year-round or only seasonally?

Since we are turning it around, I would also ask: are they the developers of new technologies or early adopters utilitizing new technologies? Are they successfully applying new technologies to old problems or old tech in new ways? Have they developed new organizational structures (think supply chains) to old issues and reaped the benefits? Have they used telecommunications and the media in new ways that enhance income growth or are they individuals who have directly benefited from those changes? Have they developed new financial instruments which have directly contributed to the ways (and yes, I do mean that in the plural) capital can be accumulated to invest in new businesses and new markets (and no I am not referring to derivatives)?

As I wrote: Everyone benefits from economic growth. Some may benefit more than others -- due to their location, being first adopters of new technology or new techniques in management, or due to the kind of knowledge that they have acquired which becomes more valuable with changes in the structure of an economy, but everyone benefits.

You have presented no new micro-economic forces at work that have not been in place since humanity began trading that explains anything. Compounded interest? The parents of wealthy children benefiting by being the children of wealthy parents? When has it been any different.

You don't understand the nature of the statistical analysis that is happening.

I do not accept statistical categories, since they have been proven flawed and do not reflect the real experiences of real flesh and blood people. I do not accept using statistical categories as a moral cudgel. I do not accept using statistical categories to promote governmental policies, especially when there are valid statistics regarding the experience of real flesh and blood people that directly contradict. I understand that you don’t like that and with each of your posts I understand why you don’t like that more.

You typed a lot and there is really nothing relevant there. When you try and declare things you are not really on topic or what you are declaring as a truth simply isn't. You type a lot and all of it could be refuted but that would be tedious.

:rolleyes: List the facts I have claimed that are not true.

It has been proved that the widening income gap is only true in terms of statistical categories. It has been proven that statistical categories are deeply flawed and lead to false conclusions regarding the real experiences of real flesh and blood people.

You can deny these all you want but the truth, the facts, confirm what I have asserted. You claim that all my typing “could be refuted.” Well, you have failed to do so through several posts, which is why you have compounded your intellectual dishonesty (or perhaps it is simply willful laziness) with this disingenuous ad hominem attack post. That’s fine. We will have to agree to disagree. Our perspectives are different and therefore our methodology is quite different. I allow the facts to lead me to a conclusion. You begin with a conclusion and seek out the facts (well, those you believe are facts) that confirm that conclusion.

Now that we understand each other its easy to see why we disagree. That’s cool.

tashi deleks and feel free to play again anytime,

M

If we could go back in time and prevent slavery and mass cheap labor immigration we wouldn't be having this "entitlement" problem today.
Bur wait! We're still doing the same thing and expecting mass flooding of our labor force to improve everybody's life.

Originally Posted by Mahasattva

Please attempt to prove that I have presented lies.

The data and the analysis I have provided IS much more relibable than those that the "left" have provided.

tashi deleks,

M

Because he says so.

Mahasstava, do you think the people in the top 1% were generally older or younger in 1970 compared to 2010?

Why is the income of the top 1% so much greater as a % of GDP in 2010 than 1970? Why have these figures changed over time?

Capitalism favors the capitalist. This is a fact you are trying to avoid.

To be a successful capitalist you have to take humanity out of the picture and I don't think the founding fathers pictured a heartless nation.
The Constitution's Preamble certainly doesn't sound heartless.