Comments for David Brooks Doesn't Want People to Focus on the 1 Percent at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 14 out of 14 comments http://www.cepr.net Fri, 24 May 2013 19:21:32 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14564 How you get away with this among social scientists is amazing, Mr. Baker. That second 19% is rising towar the top 1% each year. A lot of those folks are 6th year associates in law firms, junior partners in medical practices, inchoate entrpreneurs, and senior VPs ... this year. In 5 years the ones among them who work hard will be the 1% for several years running and those in 2012's 1% will be retired. But in any case, would you rather 10% greater equality if it meant 10% more poverty? No. - Commentator Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:45:26 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14563 Hi Mr. Baker, Saw you on Kudlow again tonight; Laffer let you out of it inadvertently. Obvious the point is the Kennedy was a supply-sider, cutting taxes 25% on the wealthy (91%-70%), i.e., cutting taxes unleashed healthy economic growth. And Reagan did, too. I looked at it and roughly, in real dollars, Reagan added 1/6th to the deficit what Obama had their first terns(taking the CBO's numbers for 2012) and created or saved - whatever - 6 times as many jobs. A stunning relative success story. Lastly Clinton lowered taxes on the rich over all, lifting the marginal (note not effective) tax rate 8%, 31% to 39.5%, but lowering capital gains from 20% to 15% and 0% brackets. Bush's efforts were mild but as Mr. Laffer points out Bush spent so much, too; and Bush's recovery was corrupted by the one-off catasrophic housing bubble. That bubble, by the way, was caused by government literally forcing banks to make bad loans. Goldman Sachs did not have to securitize them and Moody's did not have to rate them absurdly, but they did using the past reliability as a basis for doing so. So, it was both government and business failure. By any measure supply side stimulus combined with zero or negative government spending increases has produced longer lasting and healthier economic growth. Reaganomics is the paragon of proofs. Deficits were the result, but I wonder if interest payments were about the same in '88 as in '83 given the drop in interest rates. I believe in limited government, but whatever else Obama's policies have been not merely expansive; they've been corrupt (perhaps legally so), wasteful, counter-productive, and inane. Commentator - Commentator Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:41:29 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14561 ...and in line with TVeblen defending his doctor, I worry about the wording of this: "... ever stronger patent protection that has shifted income from ordinary workers to those able to earn patent rents." The vast majority of all patents are assigned to corporations. They don't "earn" anything because they don't invent anything - their employees do. Most people who invent patentable things are wage slaves, and their corporate bosses end up "assigned" the rights to their invention. This is arguably fair, since since the wage slave scientist or engineer (maybe a 20 percenter, not a one percenter) was paid while he thought up his idea - the corporation should get something or it might not employ the inventor. But getting all the Patent rights forever while the inventor gets a brass plaque is abusive. A better system would be one where patents (and for that matter Copyrights too) would be assignable for no more than, say, three years. After that the rights would revert to the creator. Now THAT is a system that would REALLY reward the content creators. - jbartas Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:25:19 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14558 Dean: I wish you would stop lumping MDs with lawyers, consultants, economists, and other "unproductive labor." The doctor that monitors my retinas and has to do occasional laser surgery is worth every he's paid (about $0.15 on the gross charge). I owe my sight to this guy's skills and what do you think that is worth to me? Since the reimbursement rate for this procedure has been steadily declining for several years he has to see more and more patients to mainatin his income. My guess is that if you adjust for inflation and "speed up," the real wages of MDs have been way below that of the CPI for medical insurance. - TVeblen Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:05:40 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14552 Poor David. He seems like a really nice guy, and he's obviously trying hard. Perhaps he should clear his columns with you before they're published. - Mike Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:30:00 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14547 It's bad enough that David Brooks is committing the Post Hoc fallacy in big ways, but relying on such a discredited social scientist as Murray is downright hubris - Eclectic Obsvr Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:16:20 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14546 Back on his home planet, Superman's family was right in the middle of the middle class. The 0.1r;s - they were really something. - fuller schmidt Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:07:36 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14543 JJ, That's WHY Brooks writes about morality - so he can gloss over the immorality that he favors. I'm not sure there's much new in that. Patriotism is the last refuge of scoudrels, pots call kettles black...that sort of thing. - kharris Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:58:39 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14541 David Brooks writes about morality. But it's tough for me to see the morality in columns that ignore or gloss over the corruption of the 0.1%. - Jerry Jones Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:01:12 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14540 First of all, the full title of Murray's book is: "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010." So, he's just talking about --you know -- the "real" Americans. The other thing is that you forget that the one per centers don't just control the political process. More importantly they control the economy. That's the way capitalism works, doesn't it? - ellis Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:59:13 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14533 [quote]It was control over the political process that has allowed the 1 percent to profit at everyone else's expense. Their productivity, whether phenomenal or not, was secondary.[/quote] On Bloomberg last night, two hot-shot traders were explaining their strategy: They have created an index of companies that spend the highest percentage of their revenues on Washington lobbying. Bottom Line: the top companies in their index consistently and significantly outperform the S&P 500 index. - PAUL Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:11:46 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14532 As far as I can tell from the economic statistics, many people in the US have become much more productive over the last few decades, not just the top quintile. I mean, look at what's happened in manufacturing. But for some reason, Brooks seems to feel that only the top 20% has made itself more productive. - NB Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:28:54 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14530 Is Brooks so willfully blind that he cannot see that market "values" are precisely what undermine his beloved traditional values. They do so far more effectively than any welfare state could. He may be blind or he may doing exactly what he is paid to do. Either way, he's a jackass. The NYT solicits readers to donate so that schoolchildren may receive a classroom subscription to their fine publication. The nerve. - Kat Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:53:10 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-doesnt-want-people-to-focus-on-the-1-percent#comment-14529 [quote]"the truth is, members of the upper tribe have made themselves phenomenally productive."[/quote] Exactly. In hunter gatherer societies the best hunters and gatherers always got the biggest portion of the bounty. It had to be so they could hunt and gather again for the rest of the tribe and preserve win-win outcomes for everyone. Any economist knows, as does Brooks, that in contemporary society there's no difference between production and distribution - producers get what's produced so everyone must produce in one way or the other lest they be subsidized by other producers and become socialist parasites on the tribe and bring it down. Don't bring your own tribe down just because your productivity is below average. Take only what you deserve according to your personal marginal revenue product as recorded with the latest micro-quantity-output meters available now with a choke chain. If the tribe goes you go with it. Stupid liberals. - izzatzo Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:31:30 +0100