Has anybody seen these videos on Palin?

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But the fact that Mr. Greenspan speaks about this topic at all may show how much the growing concentration of national wealth at the top, combined with the uncertainties of increased globalization, worries economic policymakers as they peer into the future.

"He is the conventional wisdom," says Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. "When I'm arguing with people, I say, 'Even Alan Greenspan....' "

Greenspan's comments at a Joint Economic Committee hearing last week were typical, for him. Asked a leading question by Sen. Jack Reed (D) of Rhode Island, he agreed that over the past two quarters hourly wages have shown few signs of accelerating. Overall employee compensation has gone up - but mostly due to a surge in bonuses and stock-option exercises.

The Fed chief than added that the 80 percent of the workforce represented by nonsupervisory workers has recently seen little, if any, income growth at all. The top 20 percent of supervisory, salaried, and other workers has.

The result of this, said Greenspan, is that the US now has a significant divergence in the fortunes of different groups in its labor market. "As I've often said, this is not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing," Greenspan told the congressional hearing.

The cause of this problem? Education, according to Greenspan. Specifically, high school education. US children test above world average levels at the 4th grade level, he noted. By the 12th grade, they do not. "We have to do something to prevent that from happening," said Greenspan.

I concur with Dr. Greenspan, a man whom those with similar backgrounds as I, worship like a god.

There is a widening income gap (and it has nothing to do with household size or illegal aliens and their sub-minimum wage jobs). The solution is education.

Again, I don't have a lot of interest on the subject so if this is a big deal with you, please forgive the brevity of my responses. The widening income gap is something I studied briefly in one of my econ classes and its existence wasn't really argued.

The Gini Coefficient and the Lorenz curve were the topics covered if I remember correctly:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

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[SB Shock]

I concur with Dr. Greenspan, a man whom those with similar backgrounds as I, worship like a god.

There is your problem. You put to much faith in a man. A man I might add who is partially responsible for today problems.

There is a widening income gap (and it has nothing to do with household size or illegal aliens and their sub-minimum wage jobs).

Please don't mind that I don't take your word for it or even want to be like Bulgaria.

[rjl]

SB Shock, here you go.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/23408.html

The top 10% of wage earners make about 47.32% of the nation's income in 2006 numbers compared to just 32.31% in 1980.

Now you can no longer use ignorance as a defense.

For those who don't see a problem with this, you're not looking at the big picture. There's a reason why responsible billionaires like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Soros, Brin, Page, etc. are concerned with the widening gap, and are actually pro-higher tax on the rich and pro-inheritance tax.

Why? Because the wider the gap becomes, the closer our economy moves to an aristocracy/plutocracy and further from a meritocracy.

[martymoose]

That's the problem. If they just let Palin be Palin her interviews would be limited to snowmobiles, ANWR, and the history of Eskimos in Alaska. She has no choice but to digest the data they are feeding her and to pretend like she knows what she's talking about.

The debate is going to be scary. Could be a trap for Biden though, he better not beat her up too bad or the American public will hammer him and McCain's campaign will get a boost.


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For once I'm going to agree with Cold on something! Just this one time though. Her interview was terrible and anyone who doesn't see that, has a big fat elephant ass obstructing their view. Half the time I had no idea what she was talking about because she went so far off the subject of the quesiton. Kinda reminded me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

[rayc]

not wanting to jump into this but the taxfoundation.org stats really don't shed a lot of light on the discussion. They are only concerned with where the tax dollars come from and as a result ignore a breakdown of the lower 50% of tax filers.

You may be entirely correct (well except maybe on your list of responsible billionaires :) ) on the income gap but the stats shown leave a lot of questions unanswered. For example, in the lower 50%, how many (millions ?) filed for no other reason than a tax rebate and how would that effect the overall "income" level of the lower 50%? And how has that number changed over any comparison period used? There are other questions as well including about the top 10%, but this one illustrates my point.

We really would need to know and factor information of that type into the equation if we want to equate tax filers with wage earners because the terms are not synonymous. The increase in wages of the top 50% may very well have out paced the lower 50% and probably have just due to Tech outsourcing and the apparent increase of minimum wage jobs, but the stats shown really don't reflect it per se. But an interesting discussion in any case and I'll bow out now.

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That's the problem. If they just let Palin be Palin her interviews would be limited to snowmobiles, ANWR, and the history of Eskimos in Alaska. She has no choice but to digest the data they are feeding her and to pretend like she knows what she's talking about.

The debate is going to be scary. Could be a trap for Biden though, he better not beat her up too bad or the American public will hammer him and McCain's campaign will get a boost.


T


...8)

For once I'm going to agree with Cold on something! Just this one time though. Her interview was terrible and anyone who doesn't see that, has a big fat elephant ass obstructing their view. Half the time I had no idea what she was talking about because she went so far off the subject of the quesiton. Kinda reminded me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

If you check out the links on my original post you will notice that I already included the link of the famous Miss America answer to parallel Palin's answer.


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...8)

[SB Shock]

SB Shock, here you go.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/23408.html

The top 10% of wage earners make about 47.32% of the nation's income in 2006 numbers compared to just 32.31% in 1980.

Now you can no longer use ignorance as a defense.

Thanks for trying, wasn't a very useful link. So I went and did my own research. Here is what the CATO institute said http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6880

There are frequent complaints that U.S. income inequality has increased in recent decades. Estimates of rising inequality that are widely cited in the media are often based on federal income tax return data. Those data appear to show that the share of U.S. income going to the top 1 percent (those people with the highest incomes) has increased substantially since the 1970s..........


In sum, studies based on tax return data provide highly misleading comparisons of changes to the U.S. income distribution because of dramatic changes in tax rules and tax reporting in recent decades. Aside from stock option windfalls during the late-1990s stock-market boom, there is little evidence of a significant or sustained increase in the inequality of U.S. incomes, wages, consumption, or wealth over the past 20 years.

Comparison between Changes Between Median Income (1989-2004)

0-20th: +21%
20-40th: +19.9%
40-60th: 12.8%
60-80th: +14.0%
80-90th: +20.0%
90-100th: +20.7%
Another link with interesting data


From the Census Burea

80th/20th Percentile Household Income Ratio
1970 - 3.95
1975 - 4.07
1980 - 4.21
1985 - 4.38
1990 - 4.42
1995 - 4.52
2000 - 4.56
2005 - 4.78

80th/50th Percentile Household Income Ratio

1970 - 1.67
1975 - 1.73
1980 - 1.78
1985 - 1.85
1990 - 1.85
1995 - 1.92
2000 - 1.95
2005 - 1.99

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Here's a nice article on the widening income gap.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/jul/30/20050730-114005-1449r/

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[shocrates]

Give Biden a pass for everything he says...give Obama a pass for Franklin Rains, yes and you're conservative Cold.

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Give Biden a pass for everything he says...give Obama a pass for Franklin Rains, yes and you're conservative Cold.

Giving a pass? I think all four candidates are complete morons.


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[SB Shock]

Give Biden a pass for everything he says...give Obama a pass for Franklin Rains, yes and you're conservative Cold.

Giving a pass? I think all four candidates are complete morons.

Welcome to the era of Rock Star Politics.