Plan B Forum

Excerpt from a column by Thomas Sowell, citing facts inconvenient to some:


Perhaps the biggest lie of this election year, and the one likely to be repeated the most often, is that the income of "the rich" is going up, while other people's incomes are going down. If you listen to Barack Obama, you are bound to hear this lie repeatedly.

But the government's own Congressional Budget Office has just published a report whose statistics flatly contradict this claim. The CBO report shows that, while the average household income fell 12 percent between 2007 and 2009, the average for the lower four-fifths fell by 5 percent or less, while the average income for households in the top fifth fell 18 percent. For households in the "top one percent" that seems to fascinate so many people, income fell by 36 percent in those same years.

Why are these data so different from other data that are widely cited, showing the top brackets improving their positions more so than anyone else?

The answer is that the data cited by the Congressional Budget Office are based on Internal Revenue Service statistics for specific individuals and specific households over time. The IRS can follow individuals and households because it can identify the same people over time from their Social Security numbers.

Most other data, including census data, are based on compiling statistics in a succession of time periods, without the ability to tell if the actual people in each income bracket are the same from one time period to the next. The turnover of people is substantial in all brackets -- and is huge in the top one percent. Most people in that bracket are there for only one year in a decade.

All sorts of statements are made in politics and in the media as if that "top one percent" is an enduring class of people, rather than an ever-changing collection of individuals who have a spike in their income in a particular year, for one reason or another. Turnover in other income brackets is also substantial.

There is nothing mysterious about this. Most people start out at the bottom, in entry-level jobs, and their incomes rise over time as they acquire more skills and experience.

Politicians and media talking heads love to refer to people who are in the bottom 20 percent in income in a given year as "the poor." But, following the same individuals for 10 or 15 years usually shows the great majority of those individuals moving into higher income brackets.

The number who reach all the way to the top 20 percent greatly exceeds the number still stuck in the bottom 20 percent over the years. But such mundane facts cannot compete for attention with the moral melodramas conjured up in politics and the media when they discuss "the rich" and "the poor."

Gee, no selective use of time periods going on there, measuring incomes at the top of the market with the bottom. How about looking at what has happened over the past 20 years, or 10, or even 5?

As to the rest, more crap. "Socialist hellholes" like Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark have far greater upward mobility from the bottom quintile than the U.S. (link - p.16)

But as usual, Dave finds something that fits his ideology and swallows it wholesale, completely uncritically.

So we're tracking numbers through the IRS, but how does that figure in with the trillions that get shoveled into tax havens out of the US?

dgs49 wrote:Why are these data so different from other data that are widely cited, showing the top brackets improving their positions more so than anyone else?

The real answer is that other people look at more than just a tiny slice of data that happens to fit your narrative. It's like looking at a couple pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and trying to figure out what the whole picture looks like.

And of course it still ignores that most people are really not much better off than they were several decades ago. Even if the rich aren't currently (and I'd like to see this study for 2009-2011) experiencing much growth, they're still very far ahead of everybody else.

Eat the rich!

dgs49 wrote:Excerpt from a column by Thomas Sowell, citing facts inconvenient to some:


Perhaps the biggest lie of this election year, and the one likely to be repeated the most often, is that the income of "the rich" is going up, while other people's incomes are going down. If you listen to Barack Obama, you are bound to hear this lie repeatedly.

But the government's own Congressional Budget Office has just published a report whose statistics flatly contradict this claim. The CBO report shows that, while the average household income fell 12 percent between 2007 and 2009, the average for the lower four-fifths fell by 5 percent or less, while the average income for households in the top fifth fell 18 percent. For households in the "top one percent" that seems to fascinate so many people, income fell by 36 percent in those same years.

Why are these data so different from other data that are widely cited, showing the top brackets improving their positions more so than anyone else?

The answer is that the data cited by the Congressional Budget Office are based on Internal Revenue Service statistics for specific individuals and specific households over time. The IRS can follow individuals and households because it can identify the same people over time from their Social Security numbers.

Most other data, including census data, are based on compiling statistics in a succession of time periods, without the ability to tell if the actual people in each income bracket are the same from one time period to the next. The turnover of people is substantial in all brackets -- and is huge in the top one percent. Most people in that bracket are there for only one year in a decade.

All sorts of statements are made in politics and in the media as if that "top one percent" is an enduring class of people, rather than an ever-changing collection of individuals who have a spike in their income in a particular year, for one reason or another. Turnover in other income brackets is also substantial.

There is nothing mysterious about this. Most people start out at the bottom, in entry-level jobs, and their incomes rise over time as they acquire more skills and experience.

Politicians and media talking heads love to refer to people who are in the bottom 20 percent in income in a given year as "the poor." But, following the same individuals for 10 or 15 years usually shows the great majority of those individuals moving into higher income brackets.

The number who reach all the way to the top 20 percent greatly exceeds the number still stuck in the bottom 20 percent over the years. But such mundane facts cannot compete for attention with the moral melodramas conjured up in politics and the media when they discuss "the rich" and "the poor."

Sowell is a lying whore. He selected years (as suggested above by scooter) to distort the comparison into utter unreality.

Publish the data for the top 1% and 5% between 2000 and 2012? Between 2007 (before the Republican collapse) and 2011. ?

People like myself (over $300,000/yr) are doing very well and our investments have all come back nicely. People making $20,000 /yr (more than dgs thinks they deserve) are still suffering and live paycheck to paycheck.

In America 25% of working people make $20,000/ yr or less. In my personal economy that is a minor annual bonus.



yrs,
rubato

You'd be a fool NOT to vote for Romney, rube.

He would make sure that you can hold onto all that loot you're always bragging about.

He'll hang on to the loot just fine so long as his marriage license remains valid....

It's amazing that there are enough willfully stupid people left in the world to form an audience for Sowell:

Data from US censes
upper limit of each group and bottom of top 5%
Inflation-adjusted.
___________________________
Year ……… Upper limit of each fifth (dollars) ……… ……… ……… ………
……… ……… Lowest ……… Second ……… Third ……… Fourth ……… Lower limit of top 5 percent
2010 ……… 20,000 ……… 38,043 ……… 61,735 ……… 100,065 ……… 180,810
2009 ……… 20,791 ……… 39,186 ……… 62,821 ……… 101,651 ……… 182,972
2008 ……… 20,974 ……… 39,493 ……… 63,518 ……… 101,508 ……… 182,277
2007 ……… 21,337 ……… 41,116 ……… 65,197 ……… 105,156 ……… 186,126
2006 ……… 21,666 ……… 40,848 ……… 64,883 ……… 104,930 ……… 188,175
2005 ……… 21,419 ……… 40,206 ……… 64,397 ……… 102,420 ……… 185,397
2004 ……… 21,338 ……… 40,025 ……… 63,751 ……… 101,580 ……… 181,399
2003 ……… 21,320 ……… 40,307 ……… 64,553 ……… 102,980 ……… 182,707
2002 ……… 21,713 ……… 40,452 ……… 64,430 ……… 101,824 ……… 181,797
2001 ……… 22,131 ……… 41,027 ……… 65,272 ……… 102,833 ……… 185,345
2000 ……… 22,689 ……… 41,782 ……… 66,058 ……… 103,525 ……… 183,865
change ……… (2,689) ……… (3,739) ……… (4,323) ……… (3,460) ……… (3,055)
percent ……… -11.85% ……… -8.95% ……… -6.54% ……… -3.34% ……… -1.66%

"Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves with railing against it."
Michel de Montaigne (1533–92),

weaklings

yrs,
rubato

Non-surprising knee jerks.

No substantive rebuttals because the facts are what they are. Those who rail about the "top quintile" (and similar such nonsense that assumes everyone is stagnant in their permanent income bracket) are either stupid or intentionally ignoring the natural churn, because it does not support their narrative.

I have never in my life seen anyone so proud of the fact that he is wealthy because of of someone else's accomplishments/income.

What a fucking loser.

Substantive rebuttals require something, uh, substantive to rebut. As opposed to the half baked mix of selective data and unsubstantiated assertion you so laughingly call "fact".

Only a deliberate liar takes 2007 to 2009 as the relevant time period.

Only a permanent fool can't figure that out for himself.

yrs,
rubato

rubato wrote:In America 25% of working people make $20,000/ yr or less. In my personal economy that is a minor annual bonus.



yrs,
rubato

You see Rooby Doob, that is the kind of statement which shows beyond a doubt that you are bragging about your 'riches' rather than just mentioning them because they are pertinent to the discussion.

I have a few friends who earn ridiculous amounts of money. The one thing they all have in common is their reluctance to discuss their income... let alone brag about it. People who earn a lot of money are usually embarrassed to talk about it amongst those less well off. For this reason (and others) I believe that you are a lying cock who probably works behind the counter at Superdrug.

That is all.

It's doubly vulgar and loutish in his case, because only a small fraction of the money he keeps boorishly bragging about is actually earned by him....

I find the way he has deluded himself into thinking people are impressed by this quite amusing...

That must be what he thinks; it's the only reason he could possibly have to keep doing it...

You can see why Repuglicans want to ignore the data; not only have their national policies increased poverty to the highest levels in decades but their states consistently have the worst poverty:


http://theaustintimes.com/wp-content/up ... overty.gif



Much better to change the subject and talk about how much they hate someone else. Don't want to tax their tiny brains!

yrs,
rubato

My state's doing very nicely thank you very much!

Much better to change the subject

YOU are the one who keeps boorishly and irrelevantly interjecting your household finances into every discussion about taxes, rube....We didn't bring it up, you did....

Don't want to tax their tiny brains

You should be very thankful they don't rube....

If the government ever enacted a Tiny Brain Tax, you'd be wiped out.....

Sean wrote:My state's doing very nicely thank you very much!

I can't move there, I'm straight.

I bet retard's wife never goes out for a cup of coffee with like minded women though, to display such "exessive affluence is never pretty"!