Conservative
Type 40
Nice opinion piece by Charles Lane
Obama’s simplistic view of income inequality
First, the facts...
now, the opinion...
and now some more facts...
and some more opinions...
Obama’s simplistic view of income inequality
First, the facts...
In a Dec. 16 Gallup poll, 52 percent of Americans called the rich-poor gap “an acceptable part of our economic system.” Only 45 percent said it “needs to be fixed.” This is the precise opposite of what Gallup found in 1998, the last time it asked the question, when 52 percent wanted to “fix” inequality.
now, the opinion...
...channeling income from rich to poor, Okun wrote, was like trying to carry water in a leaky bucket. He wanted to move money from rich to poor without “leaking” so much economic growth that the whole process became self-defeating.
The president, like Okun, acknowledged that the free market created “prosperity and a standard of living unmatched by the rest of the world.” But he explained the recent rise in inequality too simplistically, as the result of financial deregulation and the “breathtaking greed” it enabled.
And rather than tackle the big trade-off directly, Obama tried to sidestep it. Rising inequality “hurts us all,” he argued, implying that more widely distributed income would essentially pay for itself through higher growth.
and now some more facts...
Which European country recorded the biggest decrease in inequality between 1985 and 2008? That would be Greece.
and some more opinions...
Public-sector unions and other interest groups wrap their causes in the rhetoric of equality. Often, what they’re really protecting are privileges that raise the cost of public services to everyone else — including citizens who earn a lot less than civil servants.