Shag, where do I start w/ so many targets?
MOVING GOALPOSTS
First of all, this topic is about income disparity and growth, not class mobility. While they are related, they are NOT the same thing. Cal’s and your insistence of bringing class mobility into this discussion represents your moving the goalposts. I did not dismiss Cal’s argument as illegitimate, I ignored it since it was OFF TOPIC.
The chart I presented was intended to show how prosperous different income classes have been under Democrat vs Republican presidents and their economic policies. It spans a considerable 57 year timeframe so that the data is not slanted by any one president, generation, war, industrial revolution or economic phase. It quite plainly shows that regardless of income level, everyone has prospered more under Democrat president/policies that they have under Republican president/policies. It also shows that when Republicans are in the White House, their economic policies favor the rich and are oppressive to the poor, making “the income disparity problem” worse. This is historical fact, with all of the dynamic interactions that exist in the real world taking place, even the ones analysts are unable to model. No attempt was being made to project what the future might hold. But it does dispel the tired and false Republican rhetoric that they are the party of individual prosperity and that their “trickle-down” economic policies work to benefit people at all income levels.
But to humor you and Cal for a moment, let’s discuss the extrapolation of class mobility from income growth. It’s pretty friggin’ simple. The less your income grows, the less mobility you’ll have getting from one income class to the next. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule. I’m sure back in the ‘70s Bill Gates was near the bottom when he was at his first job and he’s been able to shoot-up through the income classes to the top faster than just about anyone else. His class mobility was driven primarily from his own ingenuity and ability to leverage his skills and build a prosperous company in ways nobody else has. As a result, his income growth is off the charts. However, for the other 98% of us who build a small business or pursue a career path based on a college education or are skilled laborers working in a factory, our class mobility is primarily a function of our income growth. Occasionally, we might change careers, or get a promotion, or come up with a new invention, or get laid-off, all of which are exceptional events that would cause our individual income growth to deviate from that of the masses. But the fact remains, when you look at which political party has been better for the incomes of ALL people and has been fairer to all income classes, the Democrats are way ahead of Republicans on both counts.
Furthermore, you created a strawman argument insinuating that liberals expect the government to fix “the income disparity problem”. Nothing is further from the truth. All liberals expect is that people at all income levels are treated FAIRLY and are given opportunities to prosper equally. Again, Republicans FAIL.
THE STATIC vs DYNAMIC RED HERRING
Once again, you start swinging the static vs dynamic analysis canard around in a lame attempt to make it appear that you know what you are talking about when quite the opposite is true. You state that the chart I presented is flawed since it is a “static” view of the facts and that it ignores “dynamic factors” (i.e.: people moving from one income class to another over time).
You are confusing “dynamic factors” with “dynamic analysis”. As I showed earlier, the chart I presented is a compilation of historical data, data that is a result of 57 years of income growth history where each and every “dynamic factor” that is present in the real world that effects income growth had been in play, even those subtle “dynamic factors” (for example, people getting fired for cheating with the boss’s wife because she was lonely due to his travels overseas to oversee the opening of that new factory, or the retiree dipping into their savings) that analysts are unable to quantify for use in their economic models.
Furthermore, the notion that historical data requires “dynamic analysis” to fully understand it, or for it to be credible, exposes your lack of knowledge of the proper application of “dynamic analysis”. Dynamic analysis is routinely used to predict the future; what should happen if all things (both static and dynamic factors) that affect the future are taken into account. Proper dynamic analysis requires use of a model, which consists of nodes and coupling factors. Nodes include the input and output parameters, as well as any intermediate point within the model where various coupling factors interact. Coupling factors consist of both the static (first-order) and dynamic (2nd, 3rd, 4th etc-order) relationships between various nodes within the model. It also relies on a set of assumptions about initial conditions as a starting point. If the model’s nodes are well defined, and the relationships between those nodes well understood, a model can be used as a fairly good predictor of future events through dynamic analysis. Unfortunately, the reality is that the model is only as good as the definitions of the nodes and coupling factors and in many cases dynamic analysis using a flawed model gives misleading results. The more complex a model, the more important it is that each coupling factor is accurately understood.
Instead of talking about dynamic analysis as a tool to help predict the future, you use it as weapon to discredit data that doesn’t require predictive analysis in the first place. This allows you to hide behind “dynamic analysis” as an excuse to dismiss other’s arguments without having to confront the issue being debated.
DICK ARMEY? SERIOUSLY?
An 18 year-old study endorsed by Dick Armey is the best you can do as a retort? Really?
YOU’RE USE OF SLANTED STATS TO DISTORT REALITY
The chart you clipped from the link to Dick’s report implies that during that short time from 1978 – 1988 (dominated by Reaganomics), people in the lower income ranks moved up more quickly than those in the upper income ranks, that they were more “upwardly mobile”. If this were true, then it would be consistent with the rhetoric espoused by the right that Reagan’s trickle-down economics benefited poorer classes more than the richest classes. However, the fact is that this chart is flawed and distorts the facts to give the false impression that poor have improved their incomes faster than upper classes.
The first flaw is that it lumps both upward and downward turnover into one statistic for a given income percentile. While the text that accompanies the chart states that the statistic includes both upward and downward turnover, you have to go to the next chart in the link (which you “conveniently” omitted from posting in your reply) to see what portion of turnover was upward or downward. This gives the false impression that upward mobility from a given percentile is larger than it really is.
The 2nd flaw is that it hides the fact that the number of people in the 5 different income percentiles are defined by population, not in terms of income $/year. Since there are a greater number of families at the lower end of the income scale, the difference between the lower and upper income thresholds of a given percentile is smaller than for the upper income percentiles where the population distribution vs $/year is more sparse.
From here:
For the years 1978 – 1988 (normalized to $2007):
Percentile / Avg Income / Jump to Next Higher Percentile
20% / $24669.8 / $17500.5
40% / $42170.3 / $18700
60% / $60870.3 / $26145.2
80% / $87015.5 / $54409.5
95% / $141425 / -----
As you can see, to climb the ladder from the 20% to 40% percentiles, your income has to increase $17500. To get from the 60% to 80% percentile, your income has to increase $26145. So naturally, with a smaller income increase necessary to jump to the next higher percentile at the lower end, there will be a higher turnover rate for the lower classes.
Finally, putting prosperity in terms of class mobility merely avoids confronting the question that wage earners really care about: How much will my income increase over the next year? Not “Will I move into a higher income class next year?” The former is in terms that can be spent at the store, the latter is in relative terms that only matter when comparing paychecks to others. But then again, maybe you ARE the type who likes to stand around with your buddies comparing the “size” of your “paychecks”.
STRAWMAN
A statement like:
“Analysis which assumes or suggests stable composition of family or household income quintiles rests on invalid assumptions.”
…is a blatant strawman. Nobody has made any assumption or assertion that incomes are stable, or that individuals don’t move between income classes. The chart I presented merely shows what influence different political parties have had on the various income classes, if, when, and only as long as, any given person falls into that income class. It was never intended to show class mobility, nor does it assume class mobility does not exist.
BOTTOM LINE:
Moving goalposts, red herring, misleading data, strawman. Yep, sounds like a typical Shag response. FAIL.
