Comments for The Post Gives Another Defense of the One Percent: Mobility at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 14 out of 14 comments http://www.cepr.net Wed, 22 May 2013 05:50:59 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14524 [quote] Earnings peak between ages 45 and 65. [/quote] Better to be young and poor than old and rich. - Floccina Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:39:39 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14519 First of all, the income mobility study seems not to have accounted for randomness. Any sufficiently small slice of the population will show "mobility." If you looked at what happened to the 1% wide slice in the middle---49.5-50.5 percentile---hardly anybody would be in the same slice 10 years later. The slice is too narrow, year-to-year random variation in incomes ensures that most people won't hit that narrow slice again. The same argument holds for the upper 1%. Simple randomness will mix up the people in the 1% with, say, the rest of the upper 5% every year. The next problem, of course, is that you needed to file two returns 10 years apart to be in the study group. This isn't as egregiously biased as the 1992 Treasury department study, which required 11 consecutive years in a row of returns. But it does mean that the study is biased toward people who were stably employed, at jobs that earned enough income to file. Those two more problems that this casual observer notices, in addition to the ones that Baker comments on. - M.Boli Mon, 30 Jan 2012 07:58:31 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14512 Let's assume conservatives are being honest with their professed belief in mobility (ie, life cycle events.) Progressive tax rates would have a net zero effect since one derives the benefits of low rates when you are young, allowing you to accumulate capital and become more productive quickly. And once you become established, your rates go up to lend a hand to those coming up behind you. The fact that they screech so loudly over progressive tax rates is an acknowledgement that they don't believe this to be the case. They understand the mobility argument is just a facade, and that the well-connected Mitt Romney's of the world would never be reduced to living in a 1500 ft^2 tract home in Hoboken. The well-connected will always be well-protected by conservatives, not because they believe in mobility, but because they know it to be a fiction. - eightnine2718281828mu5 Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:57:41 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14507 Inequality and gap in between poor and rich is a tough subject to discuss , The rich won't leave its rights to be rich , which they earned through years and created a system , which is difficult to reak,The poor when at the brink of break down comes on road, the system goes on , equality never exists, but inequality can be reduced through available models ? - brhaman Mon, 30 Jan 2012 02:27:33 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14498 It's the top 1% of the top 1%, the ten thousand wealthiest families in America. They bankroll both political parties, set the political agenda, and between them avoid paying over $300 billion a year in taxes they legally owe (according to NYT financial correspondent David Cay Johnston). Why is this important? Because you don't want to multiply your enemy unnecessarily. The billionaires are hiding behind the millionaires, and ripping them off to boot. - Luke Lea Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:23:33 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14497 Lordy lord! The parental marriage thing has been around forever. I remember back when Reagan was first elected President that there were people promoting that ****. But then you saw the young man who was the prospective bridegroom, and you said to yourself, "Young woman, it is too bad that you went out with this idiot, even worse that he's the father of your child. Please, please, don't ruin your life by marrying him, I beg of you, no matter what some right-wing petty moralist suggests." - PeonInChief Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:15:05 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14496 When I first started reading this blog, I found myself eagerly awaiting all of Dean's posts. Now, I find myself eagerly awaiting all of izzatzo's responses to Dean's posts. They are hilarious. Question: izzatzo, are you someone on the inside at cepr? The speed with which you are able to comment is very suspect. - JSeydl Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:02:24 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14495 Seen from the last 1% in the bottom, there is not much difference between the people of the first 1% and the second 1%, or even between the people in the 75 firsts 1%. There is no such thing as an upper 1% on one side and a 99% on the other side. - Gerry Flaychy Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:53:22 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14494 I would think that the mortality rate of the top 1% over 10 years would be substantial. Was that taken into account? - Robert Salzberg Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:21:17 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14493 The article isn't really meant to be read. It's just a bunch of lorem ipsum to fill the space under the headline - have you ever seen such a gigantic headline in the Post outside of 9/11 or a presidential election? - and the purpose of the headline is to tell you to ignore the DFH's and believe what's good for you. - Bloix Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:06:27 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14492 From wapo: "Making the poor more economically mobile has nothing to do with taxing the rich and everything to do with finding and implementing ways to encourage parental marriage, teach the poor marketable skills and induce them to join the legitimate workforce." That explains it. The poor are poor because they won't get married, have no skills and refuse to work. That also explains why so many pols are very wealthy: Multiple marriages, are highly skilled liars and practice their skill constantly. - breathless Sun, 29 Jan 2012 07:27:18 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14491 What is the optimal amount of income mobility? The current level is surely too low, but do we want complete mobility so that the sons of rich and poor people alike have identical probability of ending up in a given income bracket? Surely not. If workers thought that their financial success would not significantly improve their children's chances for financial success, then workers would not work as hard as they currently do. (Does that sentence have a whiff of Reaganomics to it? maybe, but it's still true). Also, it is well-documented that going from rich to poor decreases happiness by a much greater amount than going from poor to rich increases happiness. We're nowhere near having to worry about possibly overdoing the mobility in this country, but I still think the notion that there can be something as too much mobility is interesting to consider. - Andrew Clearfield Sun, 29 Jan 2012 07:22:31 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14488 Dean--You say "Unlike most other studies of income mobility, the Treasury study did not restrict itself to prime earners (ages 25-55 at the start of the 10-year period). This would lead it to find greater mobility than other studies." You may want to clarify these two sentences. What I believe you are attempting to say is that the Treasury study, by not limiting itself to the 25-55 age group, result in a finding of greater mobility. If it had limited itself to that age group, the mobility would have been lower. I had to read the sentences twice to figure out what you were saying. At first, I understood the passage to mean that if the survey had been limited to the 25-55 year old age group, it would have found GREATER mobility, which, of course, is directly opposite to the concept you were (I think) attempting to convey. If my assumption as to what you meant is correct, you may want to edit the passage slightly. - Stuart Levine Sun, 29 Jan 2012 05:27:36 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-gives-another-defense-of-the-one-percent-mobility#comment-14487 Like any economist Wilson understands from recent studies that market power and wealth accumulation don't stifle competition by definition. In models that start out with effective competition and random accumulation of market power and wealth the end result is never market power and wealth accumulation by a [i]particular[/i] one percent. Instead, because these effects are temporary while absolutely essential to preserve incentives to produce, the concentration of market power and wealth is never [i]sustained[/i], instead facing rapid turnover at the top due to the most effective version of competition known as [i]Nobility Mobility[/i] or the equivalent of term limits for politicians As Obama the Wealth Gap President said recently in the SOTU, this should never be confused with its opposite - the pursuit of [i]Utility Futility[/i] by the masses, which is code for redistribution that leads to [i]Statist Stagnant Socialism[/i] (SSS). Be a mobile price maker, not a SSS price taker. You too can rise to the top albeit for only a few months or years. You can tell your grandchildren that you climbed to the economic mountain top and they can too! Stupid liberals. - izzatzo Sun, 29 Jan 2012 03:52:15 +0100