When was the last time Joe Stiglitz was right about anything?

[KrazyHorse]

It's patently obvious that his understanding of macroeconomics lies somewhere in kiddy territory, but one would think that he could at least do a puff piece for nymag without embarrassing himself with factual errors. At least two howlers:

I’ve also seen statistics suggesting that higher-income people go to church more than people at the bottom, who are working very hard to get by and don’t have time for it.

Poor people (measured by income) work less hard than rich people. Or at least work less hours in the marketplace, which is petty much the only thing you can measure. See, e.g. http://dipse.unicas.it/wb2008/abstra...Bilancini2.pdf or an of the half dozen other studies which find the same thing.

So in lower-income brackets, both people have to work. It used to be that once women got married, they were basically out of the labor force.

Same problem; higher income married people work more (both wives and husbands).

EDIT: link to said puff piece http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/...ss-gap-2012-1/

[Kuciwalker]

I wonder who's worse, Joe Stiglitz or Arnold Kling...

[KrazyHorse]

kling usually manages to be wrong and interesting. stiglitz is usually wrong and boring.

[Lorizael]

I’ve also seen statistics suggesting that higher-income people go to church more than people at the bottom, who are working very hard to get by and don’t have time for it.

I don't believe you're in a position to say this statement is a factual error.

[Wezil]

Stiglitz was a great character in Basterds.

[Felch]

Poor people (measured by income) work less hard than rich people. Or at least work less hours in the marketplace, which is petty much the only thing you can measure.

It's difficult to measure, but it's reasonable to believe that poor people spend more unpaid time minimizing their cost of living. If you're making $200,000/year working 70 hour weeks, then you're non-working time is more likely to be spent in leisure, since you have the resources to pay for shortcuts (eating out, cleaning services, etc.) If you're making $10/hour, 60 hours a week, then you're probably spending more of your free time cleaning your house, preparing food, or dealing with other tasks. You could have a rich executive who works 70 hours in the office, and 5 at home on chores, while a Mexican lady could work 60 hours a week at her two jobs, then goes home and does 20 hours of chores that help make ends meet.

Basically, there is labor done for economic reasons (reducing the cost of living) which isn't being done for wages. Since Stiglitz is talking about poor people not having the time for church, it makes sense to include hours spent working without wages. However, it's up to him to back up the assertion with data.

[KrazyHorse]

I agree that non market activities are likely higher among the poorer. Note that the extent to which this is true also affects measures of inequality (market income provides more of the consumption among the higher paid).

[Imran Siddiqui]

Stiglitz was a great character in Basterds.

"Say "auf Wiedersehen" to your Nazi balls."

[SlowwHand]

"Poor" people don't inherently work less hours.

[giblets]

I'm not sure about this "rich people attend church more" thing. The first link I found on Google said this:

Again, there’s quite a bit of variation from state to state, but overall we see a positive correlation between income and religiosity in poor states and a negative correlation in rich states: To put it another way, in Mississippi, the richer people attend church more. In Connecticut, the richer people attend church less.

http://andrewgelman.com/2007/11/religiosity_and/

That's weird, does anyone have and ideas about why this is the case? Globally it seems that richer countries are generally less religious, but I wonder if religion is more popular among rich people within developing countries?

I'm guessing in the religious areas there is a perception that people who go to church have better morals, and rich people can afford to spend more of their resources on maintaining their social status.

[KrazyHorse]

So your point is that stiglitz was wrong about something else in this piece?

[Hauldren Collider]

It seems like a fairly pointless observation. For the most part, churchgoing is one of the most innocuous, inoffensive things anyone can do. Why should anyone care if Stiglitz has some vague, unsupported claim that rich people like church? Disregarding the fact that he's probably wrong and has little to no reason to believe it, what does it matter anyways?

[KrazyHorse]

Are you an idiot?

[Hauldren Collider]

Rich people do a lot of things poor people don't. I don't see why we should care if rich people have more time for church than poor people. Rich people probably skydive and ski and go to movies and bars and all sorts of other stuff more than poor people. Big deal. I don't see church as really any different than some other way of spending your time.

[KrazyHorse]

This thread is about joe stiglitz being wrong. Stop confusing the issue.