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[nova]

zartan, on 03 November 2011 - 03:10 PM, said:

"Since the Census Bureau started measuring the Gini coefficient in 1967, it has risen by 20% for full-time workers and 18% for households. Among households, the index has risen from 39.7 to 46.9,^[46] from 31.4 to 42.4 among men and from 29.8 to 35.7 among women.^[47] According to Gini coefficient data, income inequality in the U.S., already among the highest in the post-industrial world,^[8] has risen considerably between 1967 and 2005 among households^[46] and individuals.^[47] "

Income Inequality Reaches Gilded Age Levels, Congressional Report Finds

The master debate strikes again.  Using a CBO report based ENTIRELY on HOUSEHOLD income to refute statements about INDIVIDUAL income. It's not even apples and oranges, its apples and horses.....

Now let me quote to you again why HOUSEHOLD INCOME doesn't mean $%&^ for the purposes of the discussion.

http://reason.com/bl...economt-does-no

Quote

The CBO study's finding—being shouted from roof tops by the left—that the top 1 percent of Americans have pulled ahead from everyone else was based entirely on household income. But the better metric to indict capitalism would be rising individual income inequality. Why? Explains the blog: “If income inequality in the U.S. was really driven by economic factors, this is where we would see it, because paychecks (or dividend checks, or checks for capital gains, etc.) are made out to individuals, not to families and not to households.”

So the real complaint of the left isn't about rising income inequality produced by markets, but rather, income inequality produced by how people choose to group together into families and households.

In other words, when I, the engineer, marry my wife, the doctor, we have driven up the HOUSEHOLD gini coefficient by some amount because we are concentrating wealth within our HOUSEHOLD, but the INDIVIDUAL coefficient, which is what matters, is unchanged because we both have the same amount individually as before.

HOUSEHOLD income is dependent upon MANY MANY factors OTHER than economic effects.  Yet again I will quote...

Quote

In other words, if rising inequality is limited to households and families and does not extend to individuals then the causes might have less to do with greedy capitalists in the American economy and more to do with other factors in the American society. These include: diminished social contact between the rich and the poor; rising divorce rates and the breakdown of families; fewer income earners in a household because of a lack of education, death or incarceration and so on.

And yes, there is more inequality in individuals now than there was in 1967, but again in the last 20 years, if anything there has been a small decrease.  So if you're bitching about individual inequality, well, you're bitching about something that happened over the course of 20 years in the middle of the last century.  Maybe you should bitch about 19th century sweat shops using child labor while you're at it....

[NextYearIsHere]

nova, on 03 November 2011 - 08:40 AM, said:

Except obscene wealth inequality is not what we have regardless of what the talking points are telling you.

Are you familiar with the Gini coefficient? If not I'd suggest you go look it up so you can follow the conversation.  In short, it's a statistical value that describes dispersion of a particular value that ranges from 0 to 1.  0 means perfectly equal dispersion and 1 perfectly unequal dispersion.

Example: If you and I are in a room together with $100 between the two of us, if we both have $50, the gini is 0, if I have all $100 the gini is 1.  Get the picture?

Well here's a funny thing if you look at individuals in this country, the gini coefficient has remained virtually unchanged (based on census data) over the last 20 years or so.  In 1994 it was .512 and in 2010 it was .503, so if anything income inequality among individuals has gone down.  As the article explains, if "rich folks be taking everything" by using the financial system to suck up more money, then the individual stats are where it will show up since dividends, capital gains, stock sales, etc etc are all tied to individuals and not households/families.

Now the story is different if you look at households and families.  Families has gone from .426 to .440 and households has gone from .456 to .469.  However this is explainable by a many other factors other than "rich folks be taking everything" namely the fact that successful people tend to group together in households/families as do unsuccessful people.

Yes, I passed high school Econ too so lets not pretend that you're bringing anything important to the table by mentioning the Gini coefficient. Actually, let's not even pretend that you're correct, because you aren't.

According to several sources I've posted here before, income inequality has always been high in the USA, but in the last 20 years, it has grown even larger. The CIA shows that in 10 years, we've gone from 40.8 to 45.

https://www.cia.gov/...ields/2172.html

"Most post-industrial nations had a Gini coefficient in the high twenties to mid thirties. Since the Census Bureau started measuring the Gini coefficient in 1967, it has risen by 20% for full-time workers and 18% for households. Among households, the index has risen from 39.7 to 46.9,from 31.4 to 42.4 among men and from 29.8 to 35.7 among women. According to Gini coefficient data, income inequality in the U.S., already among the highest in the post-industrial world, has risen considerably between 1967 and 2005 among households and individuals."


There is no way to spin the data. It all points to the same thing. You either have to admit that the gap is growing even larger or lie, that's it.

Next you'll probably mention the Lorenz curve to me to sound like you understand all of this in a vain attempt to pretend that everything is perfectly fine.

[NextYearIsHere]

zartan, on 03 November 2011 - 03:10 PM, said:

"Since the Census Bureau started measuring the Gini coefficient in 1967, it has risen by 20% for full-time workers and 18% for households. Among households, the index has risen from 39.7 to 46.9,^[46] from 31.4 to 42.4 among men and from 29.8 to 35.7 among women.^[47] According to Gini coefficient data, income inequality in the U.S., already among the highest in the post-industrial world,^[8] has risen considerably between 1967 and 2005 among households^[46] and individuals.^[47] "

Income Inequality Reaches Gilded Age Levels, Congressional Report Finds

damn you for beating me to the punch on just how wrong Nova is

[zartan]

nova, on 03 November 2011 - 03:41 PM, said:

The master debate strikes again.  Using a CBO report based ENTIRELY on HOUSEHOLD income to refute statements about INDIVIDUAL income. It's not even apples and oranges, its apples and horses.....

go back to my post. read the sentence right before the link. and then bring me a sandwich.

[Bulldog17]

help me out..............what's the score in here?

[nova]

NextYearIsHere, on 03 November 2011 - 03:49 PM, said:

Yes, I passed high school Econ too so lets not pretend that you're bringing anything important to the table by mentioning the Gini coefficient. Actually, let's not even pretend that you're correct, because you aren't.

No pretending to it.  As usual, I'm right, you're wrong.

NextYearIsHere, on 03 November 2011 - 03:49 PM, said:

According to several sources I've posted here before, income inequality has always been high in the USA, but in the last 20 years, it has grown even larger. The CIA shows that in 10 years, we've gone from 40.8 to 45.

I'm basically going to ignore all the other blather you wrote because what I'm about to say makes it meaningless.  Here are the values for all 3 metrics based on US Census Data



Whatever increase happened among individuals, happened a long time ago.  Basically you have an issue with something that happened over 20 years in the middle of the last century.  Perhaps you'd like to gripe about child labor in 19th century sweatshops while you're at it.

NextYearIsHere, on 03 November 2011 - 03:49 PM, said:

Next you'll probably mention the Lorenz curve to me to sound like you understand all of this in a vain attempt to pretend that everything is perfectly fine.

Not going to explain much else because even if I did you wouldn't understand the point in the least, just like pretty much every other discussion we have that concerns actual data.

You understand the talking point portion of it without actually being able to dig in and actually understand the meat it.  It's rather like me telling you an airplane can't fly without wings only to have you respond " BUT IT HAS ENGINES IT CAN FLY!"

[nova]

zartan, on 03 November 2011 - 04:09 PM, said:

go back to my post. read the sentence right before the link. and then bring me a sandwich.

I guess you'd like a cut n paste cookie for reposting a wiki article that uses incomplete and out of date data that the Census bureau isn't providing any more?  Is that what you're so proud of?

http://www.census.go...quality/IE2.xls

right around .4 for nearly 20 years now.  BUT INCOME INEQUALITY IS SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL!  Oh yeah, 20 years of stability is spiraling out of control all right...

[nova]

[zartan]

nova, on 03 November 2011 - 04:47 PM, said:

I guess you'd like a cut n paste cookie for reposting a wiki article that uses incomplete and out of date data that the Census bureau isn't providing any more?  Is that what you're so proud of?

http://www.census.go...quality/IE2.xls

right around .4 for nearly 20 years now.  BUT INCOME INEQUALITY IS SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL!  Oh yeah, 20 years of stability is spiraling out of control all right...

whoa, high wind alert! the spin machine is working overtime. so when you use gini coeffecients, it's legit, but when we use them, it's out of date and contains incomplete data.

it's so clear that you saw this data, noticed the one bit that seemed comparatively static, and then worked backwards to try to justify a failed economic poilcy, and that the individual section was the most important bit of data. oh, and there's lots of reasons why the family/household section wasn't so important. spin, spin, spin...have you reached tropical storm status yet?

Edited by zartan, 03 November 2011 - 05:05 PM.

[Gidnik]

I'm sorry I'm too busy at work to be concerned with this

[Haymaker]

everybody entering this thread owes Mr. Nova a cover charge.....cuz he owns this joint

[Gidnik]

[w00k]

Did he fracture anyone's skull?

[C-1]

PaperShaker, on 01 November 2011 - 11:53 PM, said:

Dude, you're trying to outsmart a substitute high school teacher...... Ain't. Gon. Happen.

I don't know who you are, nor do I care, but that right there Sir was funny ass hell!

[C-1]

Haymaker, on 03 November 2011 - 09:22 PM, said:

everybody entering this thread owes Mr. Nova a cover charge.....cuz he owns this joint

He has done some serious ass cuttings on this thread indeed, in fact I need to find out where to pay my cover charge before he finds out that I viewed the blood letting for free.

What a beat down.