Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

[Hammer]

So if I eat Chick-Fil-A for lunch and Oreos for dessert, what happens?

You might be on sitting on the pot for a bit.

[mookie1995]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Except you're ignoring that income mobility in the US is far less than most other industrialized nations. And we're a far less mobile society than we were back in the 50's and 60's. A person in the bottom quintile may move up to the next highest, but they are not likely to ever reach the top.

Hell, NPR had some right-wing think-tank wonk on yesterday, and even he said we aren't providing enough "equality of opportunity" (as opposed to "equality of outcomes," as he put it) to our citizens.

details? not raw conclusions please.

-us imports a high number of poor who want to come here. poor dont cross the border to sneak into denmark.
-our population is also much higher than denmark so the vast volume in each strata will increase your odds that you don't move over a gazillion people to change vs moving over a few thousand.
-as a country with many of the top mktcap companies in the world we would expect to see outsourcing that in turn drives up the bottom rung in the countries where we move jobs to free resources here.

while all your conclusions may be true, it's easy to just cry about it rather than realize you can't compare apples to oranges.

[Rover]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Romney wants to raise taxes on 95% of Americans. That's ok though cause it's the 95% no one cares about.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...-graph/260585/

Not sure why Mittens keeps walking into these things, but again if people want to pay higher taxes to give Romney a tax break, be my guest. I am waiting for someone to trot out the "top tier tax rates stimulate the economy" argument though. I don't think even the knucks' bother to make that claim anymore.

[mookie1995]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Not sure why Mittens keeps walking into these things, but again if people want to pay higher taxes to give Romney a tax break, be my guest. I am waiting for someone to trot out the "top tier tax rates stimulate the economy" argument though. I don't think even the knucks' bother to make that claim anymore.

this proposal is just stupid (the tax, not yours - you have enough others to deal with). increase the rate on those with money... and i mean WITH money. BO, kerry, and back to gore called me rich. nope. no me, them.

[LynahFan]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Except you're ignoring that income mobility in the US is far less than most other industrialized nations. And we're a far less mobile society than we were back in the 50's and 60's. A person in the bottom quintile may move up to the next highest, but they are not likely to ever reach the top.

After living in the UK for 2.5 years and Switzerland for 2 years, I have to say I'm quite suspicious of those statistics. They just don't jive with what I witnessed in either of those countries - I just can't shake the feeling that there is greater opportunity available in the US.

I usually cringe when I agree with mookie (no offense!), but I think he may be on to something. If you measure mobility only by changing quintiles, I think you're always going to find less mobility in a countries with larger populations and more mobility in countries with more progressive tax structures, which would tend to cause the quintiles to bunch closer together - yes, there may be more events per capita where someone changes quintiles but the meaning behind each event is less significant. In a country where the quintiles are farther apart, there's going to be a lot of "churn" within quintiles that is missed, but yet really does indicate meaningful change in people's standards of living.

[Rover]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

After living in the UK for 2.5 years and Switzerland for 2 years, I have to say I'm quite suspicious of those statistics. They just don't jive with what I witnessed in either of those countries - I just can't shake the feeling that there is greater opportunity available in the US.

I usually cringe when I agree with mookie (no offense!), but I think he may be on to something. If you measure mobility only by changing quintiles, I think you're always going to find less mobility in a countries with larger populations and more mobility in countries with more progressive tax structures, which would tend to cause the quintiles to bunch closer together - yes, there may be more events per capita where someone changes quintiles but the meaning behind each event is less significant. In a country where the quintiles are farther apart, there's going to be a lot of "churn" within quintiles that is missed, but yet really does indicate meaningful change in people's standards of living.

I'm wondering if it might be a college educated/non college educated thing? Given the clear decline in manufacturing in this country I could easily see how working class stiffs are far less upwardly mobile than in past decades or than places like Germany or Japan which are net exporters. I wouldn't expect the US to be able to compete in this category with most Asian nations.

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Mr. Obama has attended .... 195 fundraisers in the 16 months since he filed for re-election on April 4, 2011 (according to CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller)...... [compared to] 86 fundraisers [attended by] President George W. Bush's calendar over the 14.5 months from May 16, 2003 ... through the end of July 2004.

(Karl Rove, today's WSJ). I'm no fan of Rove at all (to me any person who filters the world primarily through short-term political impact is suspect); still....at more than 12 fundraisers per month that's one every 2.5 days!

Set aside political affiliation and everything else for a moment and view this strictly from the viewpoint of a citizen: our President is spending about 1/3 of his waking time traveling to, attending, or traveling from fundraisers!

How about, you know, actually attending to the business of the country a bit more?

Who know, perhaps it might actually help people view you more favorably if you at least appeared to care about something more important than yourself!

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

One of the most quoted, unquestioned maxims in life goes like this: If you're not liberal when you're young, you have no heart. If you're not conservative when you're older, you have no brain.

[Kepler]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

If you measure mobility only by changing quintiles, I think you're always going to find less mobility in a countries with larger populations and more mobility in countries with more progressive tax structures, which would tend to cause the quintiles to bunch closer together - yes, there may be more events per capita where someone changes quintiles but the meaning behind each event is less significant. In a country where the quintiles are farther apart, there's going to be a lot of "churn" within quintiles that is missed, but yet really does indicate meaningful change in people's standards of living.

That's a good point, but I don't think data with finer granularity would tell a different story. I recall from my grad student days in Sociology (when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, in the 80's) the consensus interpretation of social stratification metrics was that the US was exactly average among western industrialized nations in social mobility and had been for about 25 years. There was nothing special either positively or negatively about the US when it came to inter-generational mobility, but of course at that time median wealth relative to other nations was much higher, and income inequality was much lower, than it is today.

Opportunity was a significant driver for the US during the period 1850-1950. It has decreased significantly since then -- I don't think it's an accident that this coincides with both the closing of the frontier and the erection of the welfare state. The former removed our greatest advantage over other countries for ex nihil opportunities, and the latter removed the existential spur from remaining poor.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

This just in -- Rich and Poor live in separate neighborhoods. I'm shocked! SHOCKED! that this made the Washington Post (no I'm not).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...tml?tid=pm_pop

Take a look @ DC. The well to do live left of Rock Creek, the less well off live east of the Anacostia. It has not changed in a long time, despite the efforts of Mr. Barry. And heaven forbid the folks in Brookline associate with the hoi polloi who live in Southie.

Not to mention, the attention whores who want the credit. I called Osama's death during the Obama administration WAY back in 2005. I knew they just wanted the credit. One of the biggest problems with our society today is celebrity fawning. People want to be celebrities because they're attention whores.

[mookie1995]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

I'm wondering if it might be a college educated/non college educated thing? Given the clear decline in manufacturing in this country I could easily see how working class stiffs are far less upwardly mobile than in past decades or than places like Germany or Japan which are net exporters. I wouldn't expect the US to be able to compete in this category with most Asian nations.

???

i redistributed a lot of wealth last year to my roofer. he isn't college educated.
i also redistributed a bit of wealth to my mechanic last month. he is also not college educated.

unfortunately for them, they both built small businesses

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

(Karl Rove, today's WSJ). I'm no fan of Rove at all (to me any person who filters the world primarily through short-term political impact is suspect); still....at more than 12 fundraisers per month that's one every 2.5 days!

Set aside political affiliation and everything else for a moment and view this strictly from the viewpoint of a citizen: our President is spending about 1/3 of his waking time traveling to, attending, or traveling from fundraisers!

How about, you know, actually attending to the business of the country a bit more?

Who know, perhaps it might actually help people view you more favorably if you at least appeared to care about something more important than yourself!

"I've loved two women in my life. I lost one to cancer, and I lost the other because I was so busy trying to keep my job that I forgot to do my job." --Andrew Shepard, "The American President"

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

???

i redistributed a lot of wealth last year to my roofer. he isn't college educated.
i also redistributed a bit of wealth to my mechanic last month. he is also not college educated.

unfortunately for them, they both built small businesses

They didn't build those.

[mookie1995]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

That's a good point, but I don't think data with finer granularity would tell a different story. I recall from my grad student days in Sociology (when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, in the 80's) the consensus interpretation of social stratification metrics was that the US was exactly average among western industrialized nations in social mobility and had been for about 25 years. There was nothing special either positively or negatively about the US when it came to inter-generational mobility, but of course at that time median wealth relative to other nations was much higher, and income inequality was much lower, than it is today.

Opportunity was a significant driver for the US during the period 1850-1950. It has decreased significantly since then -- I don't think it's an accident that this coincides with both the closing of the frontier and the erection of the welfare state. The former removed our greatest advantage over other countries for ex nihil opportunities, and the latter removed the existential spur from remaining poor.

there you go. cause and effect. back then i could add examples. i grew up surrounded by steel mills. in the 80s they couldn't compete in the with the cost of production. my neighbors decided that they wouldn't work for less money. they struck, and continued to do so. they then 'retired' to their 2nd homes in florida. of course their kids who would have traditionally followed them into the mills were left holding the bag.

[Rover]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Given its a slow news day, I'll address the nonsensical "too much time fundraising" argument. Since fundraisers generally aren't all day events, and several can be held on the same day, not sure what the problem is. Since Obama hasn't been parking money in secret offshore tax havens, and we know this because he's released his tax returns, he doesn't have a slush fund of ready cash like Mittens does to draw upon!