Cafe Hayek - Latest Comments in On America’s Middle Class

Re: On America’s Middle Class

elizabethwhite — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:34:56 -0000

The middle class will be paying all of the taxes. This group in Congress now wants one group to pay all of the taxes and the other group to be parasites. There are not enough rich people in this country to pay all of the taxes it will take to support the moronic laws being passed with this stimulus passage.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

johnsonkate — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 08:32:02 -0000

nice blog for readers to get information for this research

Re: On America’s Middle Class

johnsonkate — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 08:31:21 -0000

nice blog for readers to get information for this research
_________________--
Submit URL

Re: On America’s Middle Class

John Dewey — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

dieter: "Did it ever occur to you that I was joking?"

No, it did not. When you wrote about the U.S. economy:

"you could make the case that english as lingua franca is holding you guys back"

I certainly did not perceive you to be "joking", but merely displaying ignorance.

"Jokes" such as your implied criticism of the U.S. still deserve to be refuted.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

John Dewey — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

er: "The USA ranks only #40 in exports per capita"

By citing such a statistic, I can only assume you favor a national policy of mercantilism. Is that correct? Do you believe the measure of a nation is how much it produces for the people of other nations? that a nation is rich when it toils away producing goods that someone else consumes?

The true measure of economic strength must certainly be GDP per capita. The United States blows away European nations on this measure, of course.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

John Dewey — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

dieter: "The USA ranks only #40 in exports per capita (mostly soybeans and subsidized cotton, I presume)"

Did it ever occur to you to research your suggestions before throwing them out?

The primary U.S. export for 2008 was capital goods, of which the u.S. exported $469 billion. U.S. capital good exports include medical equipment, aircraft engines, material handling equipment, and telecommunication equipment.

The second largest category of goods exported by the U.S. in 2008 was industrial supplies, coming in at $387 billion.

In addition to the huge amount of goods exported in 2008, the U.S. also exported $552 billion of services. The services category of exports includes business and professional services, financial services, travel and air passenger fares, and transportation.

Before making more silly suggestions about U.S. exports, Dieter, please consider checking out a few facts. It's really easy to do.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

dieter — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Newsflash: Those Hollywood movies are dubbed in most markets. Successful internet sites need to be localized as well. Native language support is a must. And they usually have powerful domestic rivals. The german Otto Versand is moving more merchandise than Amazon in Germany. StudiVZ/SchülerVZ/MeinVZ is more popular than facebook, GMX more popular than Gmail, etc.

The advantage, american companies have, is economy of scale. Hollywood can afford to blow lots of expensive things up and recoup the cost from the english speaking market alone. Dubbing is a no-brainer once you have the expensive footage. (Aren't most "Hollywood" movies shot in Canada nowadays?)

Btw. most of these internet sites don't make any money and have no viable business plan in sight.

The USA ranks only #40 in exports per capita (mostly soybeans and subsidized cotton, I presume)

So if anything, you could make the case that english as lingua franca is holding you guys back, since it gives the cognitive elites an excuse not to learn foreign languages.

About programming: There is no need to learn english grammar to code. Documentation is the issue. Lots of programmers can't speak or read english, but the ability to read the primary reference documenation is certainly a huge advantage.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

SheetWise — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

It's usually late in the day for me when I have comments to make at Cafe Hayek -- and I've usually had a few adult beverages. I notice all readers here that my postings should not be taken seriously if I've been drinking. Use your own judgment.

Gil -- would you like to make the same disclaimer?

Re: On America’s Middle Class

Gil — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

How about this: define 'middle class'. What does that actually mean? It sounds as though it's some sort of a relative term. Of course, there will always be people who aren't defined as 'upper crust' nor 'lower class'. Is like 'the poor'? Some seem to use the poor as to mean the 'bottom quintile'. Hence the 'poverty rate' will always be 20%. It's the same as stating "Did you knnow half the population is below average median intelligence?" Truth being told there is always about 80% of people who be considered 'middle class'. Maybe a peasant farmer in the Middle Ages was 'the middle class' - he had basic access to food and shelter - neither of which the poor had back in those times.

Even if we're talking absolute shift in what the middle class, so what? How do know that the average fat-arse middle-class Westerner losing the purchasing power his father had mean 'something's wrong'? What if the shrinking income merely has to do with outsourcing and globalisation? In other words, Westerners had it good because of trade barriers and puppet governments that forced non-Westerners to be artificially poor? If so, then the lowering of real income for the average Westerner and increase in real income for the average non-Westerner could be reflecting the honest redistribution of forced wealth gain back to the rightful producers?

Re: On America’s Middle Class

S Andrews — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Well, why do you think all those programming languages are English based? Because we invented them all!

It is true that the early development in computer technology happened in the United States. But imagine, if the Japanese had come out with a programming language based on Japanese, how popular would it have become in places like the US, Britain, Australia, India, Singapore, Canada, Western Europe etc? English language has an upper hand as a lingua-franca of the world. It's adoption would be more widespread.

Some of the top programmers in the world are from Russia and Poland, countries with low prevalences of English speakers.

I am sure that is the case. I live in Silicon Valley and have worked in Engineering teams in many companies for well over a decade. From my experiece, a typical software company's engineering team comprised of somewhere between 30-70% of the team made up of engineers who are ethnically Indian and any where from 20-40 percent who are ethinically from far east ( mostly chinese ). The hardware companies have a different composition - they tend to be dominated by Chinese Engineers with a substantial Indian presence.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

colson — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

muirgeo - while the basis of the RS article may be a bit off-topic, I do agree with only a small part of the author's assertions: cap and trade will do nothing but pad the pockets of bankers. It is so perfect - take something that can barely be measured in any tangible way, place a price tag on it and charge people to trade it. It is the ultimate derivative - a derivative where the underlying asset is conjured from thin air.

-------

Now, back OT, I would generally equate much of our economic progress over the past 30 years to shifts in public policy in the 1980s that are being unwound right now. Lowering the top tax brackets have permitted the wealthy to keep, invest, and spend more of their money.

The larger problem prior to the 1980's was that a lot of capital was tied up in the government. As top marginal tax rates dropped, it gave rise to the need for people to find ways to invest their monies. These changes re-birthed creativity as new capital came to market. There was suddenly enough money to fund the good, bad, and just plain stupid. And the end result was an explosion in technology and communications.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

Urstoff — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Why is there never any discussion of how immigration and the consequent influx of low-skill workers affects median income. What would happen if you excluded immigrants from the story?

Re: On America’s Middle Class

K Ackermann — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

"A rush of technology has causes; it must be explained."

In the case of the Internet, it changed everything. It was the cause, and the rush.

A company I contract for still considers itself a manufacturing company, but it's not. It's an e-commerce company that happens to make stuff. Everything it mkes is driven by the net.

They made stuff 20 years ago too. The difference was they didn't need a separate building to house the racks of computers that serve up the public face of the company, the marketing data, and the manufacturing files.

20 years ago, 99% of the population did not need a database. Today, my grandmother has a backup strategy.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

SheetWise — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

"Technology is not a variable exogenous to economic growth."

This doesn't sound right. They certainly feed each other, but I don't think they're dependent. There are a lot of technologies I've watched that have taken twenty years or more to be properly applied (adopted) -- that's when the economic growth occurs. Technology comes from a dream of economic growth, that growth doesn't necessarily follow.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

Martin Brock — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

... the markets are manipulated by the finance industry ( Goldman Sachs) in particular.

Taibbi shot back: "Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also has former players fronting major TV shows. They have the ear of the president if they want it."

They have the ear of the President, period. "If they want it" is just a bone thrown to Rolling Stone's Obama worshiping readers.

Why would anyone expect the Federal government to "rescue" them from this corporatist ensemble, when the Federal government is clearly part and parcel of it? No, it's not a "conspiracy". It's just how our increasingly feudalistic/socialistic/fascistic planning apparatus operates.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

Martin Brock — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Technological change and returns to high-tech skill are a factor, but despite his claim of scientific integrity, Cooley never supports, with data, his assumption that returns to high-tech skill, rather than renk-seeking, account for the disproportionate income rise at the highest percentiles. He writes that rising executive compensation for example "seems not" to explain most of the change, but writing "seems not" is not actually using data to support the conclusion. It's just the same sort of unsupported generalization that Cooley faults in the partisans asserting middle class stagnation.

Cooley simply ignores data from the Cato Institute that show a very substantial income divergence between public and private sector employees, with public sector income increasing at double the rate of private sector income for decades. Does this divergence reflect higher returns to skill or a persistent willingness of statesmen to tax/borrow/inflate and spend?

Maybe Federal employees have "training" credentials to account for the rising income, but since we don't consume their output in market exchanges, how am I supposed to know that these credentials actually measure any skill with a market value? That Federal employers hire people with credentials and then encourage the employees to collect more credentials to earn higher wages is not evidence of higher return to skill in the market. It's only evidence that a central authority wants people collecting more credentials. If all of these employees have degrees in Sociology or Marxist economic theory, what's the difference?

The same question applies to executive compensation in an increasingly corporatist private sector. Regardless of how a Federal employee busies himself, all Federal employees are essentially "executives", even the TSA employees searching handbags for toothpaste at airports. They execute policies for a living rather than producing and providing goods and services to others. Maybe the greater complexity of high-tech production explains the need for more highly skilled and compensated policy makers and bureaucrats, but I doubt it. Show me.

That much of the tiny "middle class" gain over the last three decades falls in the "fringe benefit" category, primarily health insurance premiums, is hardly encouraging. For most people with employer provided health insurance, these premiums differ little from a tax. They pay the tax and get whatever health care it buys. I have little reason to suppose that a rising insurance premium actually corresponds to a rising living standard or any rising consumption at all. You might as well tell me that my living standard rises every time my taxes go up. After all, I'm paying for something, so I must be better off, right?

Re: On America’s Middle Class

dieter — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Let's see now, Hollywood puts out a movie and its soundtrack is in English, so it can be heard and understood without subtitles in exactly how many markets? Umm quite a few, really.

Most of your beloved Germany, Europe by

I am not a German. Good luck in finding a movie theater in Germany or most of continental europe with non-dubbed Hollywood movies anywhere outside a few bohemian quaters. Turn on german TV and it is all dubbed as well. (including Seinfeld, Southpark, etc.)

I would estimate that at least 95% of Germans couldn't follow a Hollywood movie in the original. I am aware of one study that holds the share of Germans with good (not excellent) english skills at 5%.

dieter: "The USA ranks only #40 in exports per capita (mostly soybeans and subsidized cotton, I presume)"
Did it ever occur to you to research your suggestions before throwing them out?

Did it ever occur to you that I was joking?

er: "The USA ranks only #40 in exports per capita"
By citing such a statistic, I can only assume you favor a national policy of mercantilism. Is that correct?

Your assumption is wrong. Some of the commenters claimed that english as lingua franca gives the US an advantage in exports. This theory doesn't hold up.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

vidyohs — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

I am curious about this vast wealth of the top 20 CEOs on USA corporations in 2008, the last compete year for which data could be obtained.

My curiosity asks, if we combined all the compensation of those top 20 CEOs for the year 2008, would it buy one F22 Raptor? Or, perhaps a better question, how many F22 Raptors would it buy, 1, 2,3, or more?

How many miles of interstate would it build?

Would it build and put one space shuttle in orbit?

In the scheme of things vis-a-vis our nation, WTF does it really matter what they are paid?

Congress regularly and repeatedly authorizes expenditures of money that make the salaries of the top 20 CEOs pale by comparison, and the recipients of that largess seem to go to one or two well connected people........in the vernacular.....what's sup with that?

Drain the cesspool contained by the D.C. beltway, fill it with radioactive waste, pave over it with crushed radioactive fused rock, and make it unihabitable for all time. Disperse government out into Qounset huts scattered out around the nation, make 'em deliver inter-office and agency communications by carrier pigeon, and give government a budget of one dollar for every man, woman, and child in the nation and penalize them with death by firing squad if the exceed that budget.

Rehumanize America.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

Dissertation Examples — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Blogs are so interactive where we get lots of informative on any topics nice job keep it up !!

Re: On America’s Middle Class

muirgeo — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Great article by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stones showing how the markets are manipulated by the finance industry ( Goldman Sachs) in particular. This sort of thing goes far in explaining much of this income and wealth inequality as well as the dysfunction of both our economy and our political system.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

James — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

@S Andrews

Well, why do you think all those programming languages are English based? Because we invented them all!

This only further illustrates my point. We are able to invent a grossly disproportionate amount of the world's great stuff because we let those inventors reap the rewards for their inventions.

The fact that good programmers may be predominately English is really beside the point. The best Barbie makers in the world undoubtedly live in China and speak Chinese, but the products their building are created in the US. The labor isn't the hard part, the imagination and implementation of that labor is.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

Crusader — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

We know it's bunk because muirduck said so.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

Cheers — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Brandon,

As a close friend of mine once remarked, there is only ONE reason that jobs are outsourced. They are outsourced because the people that work in them can find more ideal pay, conditions or work elsewhere.

If I was willing to work for a dollar less per hour, my job would not be outsourced. But I'm not willing to. I'm not willing to because I believe my time is worth more than that and I can get an equivalent or better job somewhere else. It has nothing to do with need or ultimately minimum wage. A rational human being who needs 20 dollars per hour will take 18 dollars per hour over 0. There are ultimately ways of getting out of contracts, minimum wage, etc. It boils down to one single thing: choice.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

Brandon — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

I never believed for a second that America's middle class was shrinking. After all, the people shouting that claim the loudest were demagogues from the Left (and a few from the Right). No one of any clout or intelligence believed it. I mean, think about it: Why would America's corporate leaders run this country down economically? It would KILL their bottom line! If they lay off all their workers or make the entire workforce (or at least a majority) lower class, their profits would dwindle enormously! And their objective is to MAXIMIZE profit.

And consider this, my liberal friends: While you malign CEOs for outsourcing jobs, you forget that if the jobs stayed in America, they would eventually have to go out of business. You know what that means? EVERYONE working for that corporation would lose their jobs! At least with offshoring, some Americans keep jobs.

Re: On America’s Middle Class

Brandon — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Well, I'm glad there's more data to support the fact that the middle class is NOT shrinking. I mean, come on! 155 million person workforce, and a few million people over the past few decades have lost jobs in small towns do to outsourcing, and all of a sudden, the entire labor force is gonna become 3rd World? Seriously? What nonsense!

I long for a day when these populist jackasses would wake up and realize things are not nearly as gloomy as they claim. Of course, that's probably a little too optimistic.

I love how these butthurt liberals and Democrats react when experts like the economist in the aforementioned article lash out and say "No! It's not true! You're lying to fit your preconceived view", rather than coming to terms with the actual facts. It's so predictable. What's this "Ivory Tower" nonsense that sam grove spouts, anyhow? A person can't disagree with the liberal Democrats' economic agenda without being some kind of stooge for the rich? Come on!

I'm a libertarian, for christ sake! I'm just as anti-big business as anti-government. I care about the individual. The problem is that one party is the party of the rich and the other is the party of the poor. They both put too much emphasis on one class and ignore the other to America's peril.