Just to get the conversation started, what I see is that everybody did well under the Clenis. And under McSimpleton.......well, sucks to be us.
There's a lot to see in the chart below, much discussion to be had.
What do you guys see?
Inspiration provided by: Nate Silver who has, as usual, great and much deeper analysis here
February 18, 2009
Now Convening the WTF Is It Now? Economic Rescue Commission
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2 comments:
Sorry UL, but these graphs remind me too much of some of the econ/stat classes I took while briefly working on a MBA, and what struck me back then (as now) is the idea that there are SO many variables and measures in 'soft-science' of Economics and yet the ultimate economic decisions are SO skewed towards the researcher's basic beliefs/assumptions that the tedious measures/graphs end up seeming no more than a 3rd or 4th order mathematical artifact, which can or can't relate to the overall economic health of a society (as is demonstrated by the long debate/responses that Mr Silver's website contains on this graph alone.) As one commentor noted (and as others have long commented), 'earnings' or income and GDP are very neutral terms -- you can have people earning money producing/selling needed goods and services that are generally considered 'positive'(homes,autos,green products, medical products & health services, etc), vs ones that are more 'negative/regressive' (like too many weapons/police/prison-guards/soldiers/nuclear reactors,etc) -- the economic metric says nothing about those values.
Along similar lines, the famous(?) book "How to Lie with Statistics" (by Darrel Huff, c1954) explains some of the common ways statistics (which abound in Economics) can be misused. My personal favorite (though heard elsewhere) is the healthy, athletic non-swimmer who drowned in an AVERAGE of 6" of water -- the first 5 steps he took were in 2" deep water and then there was a 20 FOOT dropoff, so the AVERAGE was 6" (yeah the math undoubtedly is wrong -- I'm too lazy to bother to figure it out -- but you get the idea.)
I got/get too tired of too many economists -- in service to our elites -- providing the cover of dry, abstruse concepts which too often were used as justification for people to ignore the suffering of others while these elites coincidentally made a profit on it.
One more note on this graph as a measurement of economic health -- the poor people (ie; those in the lowest 10%-ile) would need a LOT more than 2,3 or even 5% increase per year to even start approaching a significant portion of the income of the 50th or 80th percentile, much less the 90th or 95th. (And it would take decades for them to gain ground). Somebody making $10K/yr (today's dollars) is only going to add $500 to his income with a 5% increase, while the guy making $50K or $75K is going to add $1000 or $1500 / yr with JUST a 2% increase. The 10% guy is probably financially strapped and is NOT going to be able to save any money -- even with the 5% increase -- whereas the higher decile people will probably be able to comfortably save that 2% AND MORE with little effort.
I think that Clenis was DEFINITELY the best president we had since Carter (talk about a left-handed compliment) and I voted for him both times, but his advocacy of 'welfare reform' as part of his triangulation strategy was a cynical ploy -- using society's weakest members as pawns -- to neutralize the Reboobs and get re-elected. Also his embracing of NAFTA hurt a lot of low and middle income people, so I've never been a raving fan of his.
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