DF - I think you forget the millions of 'Reagan Democrats' in your rash generalisation.

And you are too quick to dismiss Ricky's argument that is based on RJ's figures. If Median Household Income had peaked in 2006 or 2008, it could be put down to the latest recession. But 1999 being the peak suggests stagnation at best for several years before the credit crunch. So, if Ricky is wrong (in that the rush for credit to bolster living standards was a result of this stagnation and a partial cause of the crash), what is your explanation for the observation?

By the way, there are Americans all over the world, you know. But the poor are perhaps less likely to be able to get a transatlantic flight to Oslo, are they not? Besides, your country has some very powerful myths about social mobility, and is clearly better than many poor neighbours to the south.

danivon wrote:DF - I think you forget the millions of 'Reagan Democrats' in your rash generalisation.

How is that addressing the idea that Reagan would be not welcome in today's GOP?

Ricky's assertion is bunk. Period.

If there was a speck of truth in it, no one running in the primary would claim to be the legitimate heir to the Reagan strain of the party.

And you are too quick to dismiss Ricky's argument that is based on RJ's figures.

No, I'm quick to reject Ricky's opinions that are fashioned out of thin air. He is responsible for actually demonstrating it; if he does so, I will deconstruct it. However, I'm not willing to analyze a myth.

By the way, there are Americans all over the world, you know. But the poor are perhaps less likely to be able to get a transatlantic flight to Oslo, are they not? Besides, your country has some very powerful myths about social mobility, and is clearly better than many poor neighbours to the south.

"Myths?"

No. In this country, you can go as high and as far as your talent and effort will take you. The idea that the game is rigged is the "myth." Only 20% of American millionaires inherit their wealth.

Ricky:

When income and wealth shift as dramatically as they have done in the US between 1980 and today, someone ends up with less than then used to have...Even accounting for the fact that modern manufacturing and marketing have reduced the cost of amentities and made them better: relative to the contemporary society they live in - middle class Americans have less than those in 1980.

I think you are confused on the meaning of median household income. The point is that the median household today has more money than the median household did in 1980. You and he/she may perceive it differently, but that's not the reality. I'm trying to point out the reality to you. Well being is only defined as relative to others by the envious.

If so, why is it that those who are in the larger group, who've seen the income and wealth shift away from them, continue to support policies that have lead to this eventuality? I call this irrational, by the way..

It's too easy to call those who disagree with you "irrational". Perhaps they realize that Obama's policies are hurting them. Maybe they are oil drillers, or solar panel installers, or maybe they care deeply about unborn babies, or want a tougher drug policy based on their experience within their neighborhood? Maybe they recall the high gas prices and the killing inflation of the Carter years and don't want them to repeat. Maybe they are very principled and believe in equality of opportunity as opposed to equality of outcome? There are a lot of smart poor people in the world. They are not all waiting for you to explain it to them.

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:DF - I think you forget the millions of 'Reagan Democrats' in your rash generalisation.

How is that addressing the idea that Reagan would be not welcome in today's GOP?

Ricky's assertion is bunk. Period.

If there was a speck of truth in it, no one running in the primary would claim to be the legitimate heir to the Reagan strain of the party.

There is of course a difference between the myth, the folk hero Reagan, and the man, the real President Reagan.

Reagan did things like increase taxes, which his earstwhile imitators are saying they would never do.

In the same way that many British Conservatives claim the mantle of Churchill or Thatcher, and many Democrats may want to be seen as inheritors of Kennedy, that doesn't mean that they actually are like their heros. They just want to be like the image that the hero presents.

And also, there are many Democrats who not only could accept Reagan - they voted for him. Twice. Probably because he was more acceptable to them than his party is now, partly because the parties overlapped a lot more back then.

And you are too quick to dismiss Ricky's argument that is based on RJ's figures.

No, I'm quick to reject Ricky's opinions that are fashioned out of thin air. He is responsible for actually demonstrating it; if he does so, I will deconstruct it. However, I'm not willing to analyze a myth.

So, then, you can furnish us with a theory for the peak being in 1999 then? One not from thin air?

By the way, there are Americans all over the world, you know. But the poor are perhaps less likely to be able to get a transatlantic flight to Oslo, are they not? Besides, your country has some very powerful myths about social mobility, and is clearly better than many poor neighbours to the south.

"Myths?"

No. In this country, you can go as high and as far as your talent and effort will take you. The idea that the game is rigged is the "myth." Only 20% of American millionaires inherit their wealth.

Surely you mean as high and as far as 'talent, effort and luck will take you?"

Social mobility is not all about millionaires. Of course, with inflation, someone who inherited a few hundred thousand dollars a coupel of decades ago and is a millionaire now may be no better off than they were before in real terms and even those who don't inherit millions can inherit a tidy sum and have some useful connections ready and waiting for them.

That's why social mobility is better measured across the whole of society, as opposed to one cherry picked stat about only a minute proportion of it.

When Ricky is wrong, it's better when noted by RJ, who manages to explain why without just throwing the same kind of bluster back. When he's right (as he is more often than many like to admit, once you decode the canuckian and typographical idiosyncracies), there is something there. I wish he'd take a breath before responsing, spell check his posts, make it easier ot read, because then it would be more worth reading it.

Median income isn't an especially good way of illustrating prosperity. It doesn't take into account all kinds of things, notably the cost of living. I'm willing to bet that the typical mortgage costs today are far higher than they were in 1980, even in inflation adjusted figures. In fact it seems likely that most households will have much higher levels of personal debt nowadays, which needs to be serviced.

This is notto say that we aren't still more prosperous than 30 years ago of course, but you'd need much better indices to measure it.

I was posting a longer reply to RJ, but Sass has put it very well. Housing costs (expecially when not applied to people in social housing or rent-control) are a major part of a household budget. It's not just the inflation-adjusted value of the income, it's the actual cost of living that is interesting.

If house values are higher, then mortgages are higher, meaning debt is higher and so is the regular outgoing.

And no, it's not just 'envy' to look at relative incomes. There's a whole lot more to it, not least of which is the inverse emotion, fear, manifested in the comfortable when they see the poor - those they are in reality only a few paychecks away from being themselves. There's also the point that if you are not a super earner, but you work very hard, you may resent that more and more of the fruit of your labour is accruing to the owners of the corporation rather than to yourself. Or you may be a small business yourself, working hard and with a good set-up, only to find yourself priced out by the big boys with tax breaks, loss leaders, foreign labour etc etc.

To ascribe looking at differentials as envy is not just reductive, it's frankly bordering on the insulting.

Sassenach wrote:Median income isn't an especially good way of illustrating prosperity. It doesn't take into account all kinds of things, notably the cost of living. I'm willing to bet that the typical mortgage costs today are far higher than they were in 1980, even in inflation adjusted figures. In fact it seems likely that most households will have much higher levels of personal debt nowadays, which needs to be serviced.

This is notto say that we aren't still more prosperous than 30 years ago of course, but you'd need much better indices to measure it.

Ricky threw down the marker that we are worse off today then we were in 1980; I've provided some evidence that he is wrong. Yes, it's not worthy of a college paper, but I think it is incumbent on Ricky or others to provide support for the claim.

Of course it is more complicated. Housing costs are higher because we tend to live in bigger houses. By the way, when Reagan took office, mortgage rates were over 13%. Debt is much cheaper now. There are all sorts of factors for us to analyze. If I could do it again I'd have a PHD in economics and spend my working time figuring this all out.

Danivon:

There's also the point that if you are not a super earner, but you work very hard, you may resent that more and more of the fruit of your labour is accruing to the owners of the corporation rather than to yourself. Or you may be a small business yourself, working hard and with a good set-up, only to find yourself priced out by the big boys with tax breaks, loss leaders, foreign labour etc etc.

For many of us who work for a living year after year who pay taxes and receive no transfer payments from the government, there is built up resentment. The resentment is generally not towards corporations per se, but to people who milk the system, whether as the politically connected wealthy, or as the intentionally, and not of necessity, non-working poor.

Danivon:

To ascribe looking at differentials as envy is not just reductive, it's frankly bordering on the insulting.

I'd like to understand this better. I think that envy is a normal human emotion. I also think that politicians try to harness that envy for their own gain, which is also normal human behavior. I just don't see why it is insulting.

The reality is that the quality of your life is based on what you have, and not based on what you have relative to others. (There may be some minor exceptions to that, but I'm talking in the main.) I think that fundamental notion is very critical to understanding the difference between a conservative and a liberal economic view.

Housing costs are higher because we tend to live in bigger houses.

They're higher because there's been an absolute explosion in house prices across the board. My sister bought a small terrace house in a very rough part of Nottingham for 25k and sold it only 5 years later for 50k, and prices in more salubrious parts of town have seen much bigger jumps than that. I don't really accept that we're all living in bigger houses. Maybe that's true in the States, although I doubt it, but it's certainly not the case here.

I do take your point about interest rates of course, which is worth noting. The thing is though, typical mortgages back in the early 80s were about 3 or 4x your annual salary. Until very recently banks were lending at much higher ratios than that. When you consider that median incomes have only grown ralatively modestly in inflation adjusted terms but mortgages are now typically needing a greater ratio of that income than they used to then it's a bloody good job we're enjoying historically low rates of interest.

Sassenach wrote:

Housing costs are higher because we tend to live in bigger houses.

They're higher because there's been an absolute explosion in house prices across the board. My sister bought a small terrace house in a very rough part of Nottingham for 25k and sold it only 5 years later for 50k, and prices in more salubrious parts of town have seen much bigger jumps than that. I don't really accept that we're all living in bigger houses. Maybe that's true in the States, although I doubt it, but it's certainly not the case here.

I didn't mean to say it is the only reason that housing costs are higher; larger houses is one of the factors that has led to an increase in housing costs in the States.

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:There is of course a difference between the myth, the folk hero Reagan, and the man, the real President Reagan.

Reagan did things like increase taxes, which his earstwhile imitators are saying they would never do.

In the same way that many British Conservatives claim the mantle of Churchill or Thatcher, and many Democrats may want to be seen as inheritors of Kennedy, that doesn't mean that they actually are like their heros. They just want to be like the image that the hero presents.

And also, there are many Democrats who not only could accept Reagan - they voted for him. Twice. Probably because he was more acceptable to them than his party is now, partly because the parties overlapped a lot more back then.

If you mean Reagan reached across the aisle in which Obama has not even tried, you're quite right. Reagan and Tip O'Neill actually hammered out a Social Security deal. Neither one got all of what he wanted. Compare and contrast that with President Obama whose most bipartisan moment has been to remind Republicans that "elections have consequences."

Reagan fired the Air Traffic controllers. Reagan also cut taxes. "Reaganomics" and "Obamanomics" are quite opposite. Reagan believed in the individual; Obama believes in the collective.

You are presenting the liberal myth of Reagan. Great, but it's no more invested in history than some of those who claim the cloak of Thatcher or Churchill are.

Surely you mean as high and as far as 'talent, effort and luck will take you?"

Luck is winning the lottery.

Social mobility is not all about millionaires. Of course, with inflation, someone who inherited a few hundred thousand dollars a coupel of decades ago and is a millionaire now may be no better off than they were before in real terms and even those who don't inherit millions can inherit a tidy sum and have some useful connections ready and waiting for them.

That's why social mobility is better measured across the whole of society, as opposed to one cherry picked stat about only a minute proportion of it.

Nice bit of spreading the dirt around--in other words, you failed to define what social mobility is. You said it's not the ability to become "rich." What is it?

When Ricky is wrong, it's better when noted by RJ, who manages to explain why without just throwing the same kind of bluster back.

RJ will be pleased to know that the reigning King of Bluster likes his posts better than mine.

Still, isn't it a bit cheeky to give Ricky a pass and demand that I deconstruct his vague, unsupported arguments? As if I'm supposed to know what he's talking about?

Then again, I'm asking you, the same guy who swats down my statistic on wealth by saying that doesn't measure social mobility--then fails to tell us what his definition of social mobility is.

When he's right (as he is more often than many like to admit, once you decode the canuckian and typographical idiosyncracies), there is something there. I wish he'd take a breath before responsing, spell check his posts, make it easier ot read, because then it would be more worth reading it.

Sadly, we'll never know.

Ray Jay - But surely we can test how much of a factor it is by tracking the values of the same houses (unextended) over time.

On resentment. Yeah, that's what i was talking about. It's tied together with the fear thing. Easier to hate and resent that which you fear, it seems.

Doctor Fate wrote:Sadly, we'll never know.

Well, that goes some way to explaining your replies...

Perhaps it would be easier all around if you didn't reply to stuff you don't read?

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:Sadly, we'll never know.

Well, that goes some way to explaining your replies...

Perhaps it would be easier all around if you didn't reply to stuff you don't read?

Wow, maybe it would be easier all around if you would READ what YOU WRITE?

danivon wrote:When he's right (as he is more often than many like to admit, once you decode the canuckian and typographical idiosyncracies), there is something there. I wish he'd take a breath before responsing, spell check his posts, make it easier ot read, because then it would be more worth reading it.

So, you said if he wrote more clearly, with fewer errors, and more thought (i.e. "taking a breath"), his posts would be "more worth reading."

I say, "Sadly, we'll never know."

What was I saying? Is it so difficult? He's been called out for his typos, spelling, and incoherence, more times than even you can count. Has he changed?

So, my statement is no mystery . . . to anyone but you.

Well, I wasn't sure which bit you were replying to, seeing as you quoted my entire post for no appreciable reason. I know exactly what I wrote, but I don't need to read it all twice, ta very much

But I was, ummm, joking. Perhaps you think a smiley-face is a signifier of animus?

Either way..

[edit - oh, you edited your post after it was replied to. That makes less sense now]