Friday October 28, 2011

YOU NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD. Jonathan Chait compares "inequality deniers" to global warming deniers. At AEI, James Pethokoukis gives his response:

In a way, Chait is correct that income inequality really resembled global warming. Both are issues that, to the extent they are even problems, could be be fixed though faster economic growth.

Don't huh-what yet -- Pethokoukis links to an AEI paper that proves, pinky-swear, that there's no real income inequality in America, either. Highlights:

...official measures... paint a bleak picture of the well-being of the middle class and the poor... This grim picture is inaccurate for several reasons. First, most analyses of economic wellbeing rely almost exclusively on narrow income measures that do not reflect the resources available to the household for consumption. These measures ignore taxes and in-kind transfers such as food stamps and often rely on underreported measures of income.

When you factor in the food stamps and the cash you make selling peeled oranges by the freeway on-ramp, you bums are swimming in wealth.

In addition, [between 1980 and 1999] the middle 20 percent of the income distribution experienced noticeable improvements in housing characteristics: living units became bigger and much more likely to have air conditioning and other features... The share of households with amenities such as a dishwasher or clothes dryer also rose noticeably.

Some of you layabouts even have refrigerators! Coming next: An AEI paper explaining that, when the authors pee down your leg, it's raining if you look at all the data.

Again I have to ask: Do these freaks even know any human beings?