GOP losing grip on married moms

[Fake Boris]

When are Ogie and Drake going to retract from their previous statement? (that the electorate is too stupid to notice that their life standards have gone down)

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Depends.

If you truly say we were at a better state pre-9/11. There is no arguing.

If you say for the record things haven't improved since the recovery started in 2002 you are full o' ****e.

All depends how you frame the arguement. If you want to be deceptive and claim no recession existed or even started under Clinton and lay all the blame of the recession on Bush have at it. (Realize you are a lying sack o ****e but have at it none the less ).

Or you can frame the arguement that the recesssion was prolonged and worsened by actions/inactions Bush took but that has by and large been dispelled as well as it is fairly well cannon (to the extent a President can influence the economy that is) at this time that Bush's tax cuts did moderate and lessen the effect of the recession.

[Adam Smith]

Originally posted by Ramo
As I indicated, I think that the calculation of inflation isn't really accurate.

CPI is an expense-weighted index of prices paid by an urban wage-earning family of four. Individuals' experiences may differ.

As I pointed out about a month ago, CPI overstates inflation by about one percent per year.

Second, compensation is being measured the wrong way. We need to remove the effects of inflation in order to compare compensation over time. This is done using the Consumer Price Index, which measures the prices faced by an urban, wage-earning family of four. However, as the Boskin Commission showed, the CPI overstates prices by about one percent per year. This is because the CPI does not properly reflect the improved quality of products (safer, last longer, easier to maintain), does not properly reflect the fact that people now buy more products at lower-priced retailers (Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon.com), and a number of other reasons. If prices are overstated by one percent per year, that means that labor compensation is understated by the same amount.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...69#post4578769

The Boskin Commission Report: A Retrospective One Decade Later
Robert J. Gordon
NBER Working Paper No. 12311
Issued in June 2006

Current upward bias in the CPI is estimated to have declined from the revised 1.2-1.3 percent in the Boskin era to about 0.8 percent today. Yet the Boskin report, like most contemporary studies of quality change, failed to place sufficient value on the value of new products and on increased longevity. Allowing for these, today's bias is at least 1.0 percent per year or perhaps even higher.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w12311

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=4586121#post4586121

Add one percent (about $450) per year to the 2005$ data in the bottom of Ramo's table and you get a slight upward trend in median income since 2000.

edits: formatting

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
Add one percent (about $450) per year to the 2005$ data in the bottom of Ramo's table and you get a slight upward trend in median income since 2000.

edits: formatting

If you truly say we were at a better state pre-9/11. There is no arguing.

I stand corrected.

[pchang]

I have a theory

I asked my wife yesterday whether or not we were better off now, than 4 years ago. She said that yes, we were, but that clearly we were one of the lucky ones.

me: So, does that mean tha the average American is doing worse?

wife: Yes, because all the economic gains are concentrated in the rich.

me: Are we rich?

wife: No.

I showed her the census data on poverty and the jobs revision data and the average income data (along with the CPI revisions).

wife: I guess the average American is doing a bit better.

me: But it is true that the absolute gap between the richest and the average is getting bigger.

wife: I guess we are comparing ourselves to the richest and seeing that they are pulling ahead.

And that is my theory on our impressions of the economy. We believe things are worse because we compare ourselves to the top in the present and not the average of the past. When looking at ourselves in the past, we can admit that we are doing better, but of course, we are the exception, since this contradicts our first comparison.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

pchang

Why has America instituionalized keeping up with the Jonses mentality rather than dealing with ones own situation?

Envy is such a petty emotion.

Whats more is the natural state of your wife to almost feel guilty about being one of the lucky ones. Where did that first gut response come from?

[pchang]

I should note

that by most measures we would be considered rich. But we really don't feel like we are rich. This is most likely because we compare ourselves to the rich we see in the media (like Bill Gates, Paris Hilton, etc.). Compared to people like them, we are clearly not rich.

[pchang]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Whats more is the natural state of your wife to almost feel guilty about being one of the lucky ones. Where did that first gut response come from?

I don't think my wife feels guilty at all. She was just convinced in her gut that the average was doing worse.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by pchang


I don't think my wife feels guilty at all. She was just convinced in her gut that the average was doing worse.

Perhaps not guilt perse but clearly there is an impression being sown that says numbers look good but most people are hurting.

I've heard this phenomena time and agian where people say "Sure my lot in life has improved but I feel like I'm the exception."

Its like we're being constantly reminded to clean our plates because of the starving kids in India/Africa/Inner city ghettos.

[Jon Miller]

If only people wouldn't just feel guilty about those who are starving and in trouble in the world and do something.

JM

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Jon

You raise a valid point. It is part and parcel of this same guilt complex that motivates people to give to charities religious and otherwise.

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
pchang

Why has America instituionalized keeping up with the Jonses mentality rather than dealing with ones own situation?

Envy is such a petty emotion.

Whats more is the natural state of your wife to almost feel guilty about being one of the lucky ones. Where did that first gut response come from?

Jesus Ogie, can we ever elect anyone that says this?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Part of the reason you'll never find me running for office.


The fact remains we have become obsessed with 'fairness' rather than our own situations.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
pchang

Why has America instituionalized keeping up with the Jonses mentality rather than dealing with ones own situation?

Envy is such a petty emotion.

See Fred Hirsch, The Social Limits to Growth, or look elsewhere for discussion of positional goods. Humans are social animals, and for most middle class people, products are less important for their intrinsic uses than for their social uses. Some people (including the wiki entry on positional goods) focus on status type goods - owning a Rolls. Id say (and ISTR Hirsch saying) its more to do with the social and network uses of the goods. If you dont own a phone in a society without phones, youre ok, cause people routinely visit without calling first. In a society where most own phones, youre likely to be socially isolated without one. Today having a phone isnt enough, you need a PC and an internet connection (and i dont mean for forums like this, just for the normal day to day communications). These are of course strongest for communications and personal transportation, but theyre not absent from other categories. Sometime people can overcome this by associating with people in a like economic situation, but thats not always easy or costless.

To sum up, worrying about the Gini coefficient is not ALL about envy.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Lotm,

re: Positional goods that really wasn't even what I was going for. Not the envy that accompanies owning certain luxury goods/services(or implied status within soceity as a consequence) but merely the visceral feeling that someone makes a lot of income and that in of itself is an inherent unfairness (regardless of how that income is put to use).

As for your other points. Agreed some costs are essentials. Transportation and communication costs as an example. But as I alluded to earlier those types of costs are among the most affordable ever (notable exception being cost increases in gasoline) to the larger public.