fair enough, but if you can't afford gas and insurance, you're back in the same boat.

Yea, to register a vehicle here in Australia it costs about $580 USD. And you have to pay that amount every year! Infact registration is so rediculously expensive that many poor people never register a vehicle... What they do is,, they get rid of their car when the rego runs out and buy another hunk of junk that still has a number of months rego left on it, then they repeat that procedure when the rego runs out again.

Evil Knievel would have loved it there!

hehehe yea.

I mean it is sickening when you consider that you can buy a car that runs for as little as $100 USD then you have to cough up $580 just to have permission to drive it on the road.

Didn't the homeless problem start when the government cut funding for residential pyschiatric care, forcing these folks onto the streets?

Gentlemen, I've really enjoyed trying to figure out who is right about these statistics. Are you both right? And if so, are these things meaningless, or at least poor tools?

It has been said that you can make numbers do anything, and I think we are seeing that here.



Clearly, this would be a big task. You guys seem to know this stuff much better than I do - how about a group project? We all grab a chunk of this, do the research, and let's see if we can come up with an answer we can agree on. If this isn't what the internet is for, I don't know what is. Any takers?

While commendable, you still need to be careful when using economic statistics, as it seems that you don't know the conventions with which they are prepared.






It was misleading because you were trying to show that the rich were getting richer while the poor were getting poorer. However, careful study of the graph shows that both groups are becoming better off.



It's both a recursive function and an exponential function. The function is (approximately) CPI = 1.02^year.



The CPI index is not adjusted for inflation, it's a measure of inflation, as you state later. I must not be understanding what you're trying to say.



You are right about inflation and wrong about the CPI. The CPI does not show you how much prices increased in the economy, it simply lumps a bunch of consumer goods in a "basket," and sees how much that "basket" increases in price over time. This method is imperfect because not everyone buys the same basket of goods. Some people might see the prices of the goods that they buy going up by 5%, some might see it go up 1%. For example, if the price of food increases, the poor will see their basket of goods increase in price more than everyone else, because food is a proportionally larger portion of their expenditures.



I agree, with reservations. However, how do you define "disposable income?" If you define disposable income as net income minus expenses required for living, then, well, how do you define what expenses are required for living? 1500 calories of food per day? 2000 calories? A 400 square foot home? A 600 square foot home? That is the fundamental flaw with this statistic, which is why it is not commonly used.







I was referring to the graph of average income over time for the various income percentiles in the US.

True, but they are very close.




Try regressing one against the other. This is exactly what it looks like. There are some minor fluctuations, but the trend is flat.



You can't use those two graphs to do that. Sorry. Comparing those two graphs is like comparing apples and oranges. The income chart was adjusted for inflation, while the CPI wasn't. If you wanted to compare that, you'd have to find the chart of average income against time, unadjusted for inflation.



Your definition of inflation is completely wrong, and your description of the causes of inflation are completely wrong. All I can do is recommend that you go read an economics textbook.



Again, no. Are you suggesting that businesses conspire to inflate prices for their own gain? That is absolutely false. Businesses are hurt by inflation more than anyone else. Inflation is introduced by central banks to keep unemployment low(er) and to maintain liquidity in the economy. Again, go read an economics textbook.



I'm not sure how this is related to inflation. And I'm not sure where you're getting this from. I've never heard of food being dumped in developing countries, although I've certainly heard of it being dumped in the US and Europe for exactly the reasons you mentioned. Farmers are organized and have a strong lobby. In return, they get assistance from the government at the expense of everyone else. But it's your local farmer and his political representative that you have to blame, not any "greedy" corporation.



How is this relevant at all? I was just discussing how the CPI is created and giving you an example of how it doesn't take quality into account.

Anyway, my point still stands. Your original chart proves that the bottom 10th percentile had their real income increase by 40% over the last 30 years or so.

I'm not going to get into any arguments over whether the rich should help the poor or not. If I were poor, I would probably demand that the rich help me. If I were rich, I would probably say that the poor should stop demanding help from others, and go help themselves.

The reality of it is, everyone just wants a bigger cut of the pie. The economics of redistribution are primarily based on self interest.

Who deserves wealth? The person who needs it, or the person who works hard for it?

so what you're actually saying is that i'm not using concepts from economics the way you do, and that's correct. i'm using them the way i learned to in my political economy and globalization classes - and i think this speaks to Oz's questions. people in different disciplines use and define concepts differently. i certainly don't know the conventions with which economists prepare stats like these; so for the sake of argument, i'll give myself the detriment of the doubt and say you may be correct on at least several points.

but that doesn't mean my original assertion is totally wrong, either.



what i was really trying to say is slightly different, that the rich are getting richer while the poor are stuggling harder and harder to stay in place (which itself is what sociologists refer to as relative poverty - but i don't think that's what everyone's necessarily been talking about).

...you know, i started this reply a while ago, and i lost track of some of what i wanted to say. i remember mostly wanting to respond to Oz's question about statistics. personally, i do think they're a poor tool, at least for many questions. we're talking here about the quality of life as much as anything, and numbers aren't going to capture that very well.

for example, the income chart i first posted is household income. even if household wages have increased, it comes at the cost of less time left for domestic work, child-rearing, and (gasp) leasure. what would happen if we looked at individual income across certain age groups? moreover, as i explained earlier, economic statistics fail to account for many of the homeless (only those who have legal jobs - which does happen).

and yes, Oz, the explosion of homeslessness in the 80s did correspond directly to one of Regan's economic policies. it essentially 'rasied the bar' for how mentally ill an individual has to be before the government will support him or her.

but that's not all homeless people. those trying to come up with hard numbers tend to believe either 1) the homeless population per capita is relatively stable or 2) the homeless population has increased per capita at least since Regan.

now, getting back to my point. that first graph measured percetiles based on reported taxes - so of course the chronically homeless aren't included. imagine that graph as if it were an economic ladder - each percentile a place you might find yourself. the ladder itself is 'rising', meaning that the people on each rung are making more. but if the homeless population is increasing per capita, that means more and more people are falling off the ladder entirely (due to their exlusion from the data set). in simple words, they've become so poor they fall off the radar completely --- if the homeless population in increasing (some of the strongest studies say, if nothing else, it jumped up again with Clinton's welfare reforms).



could you recommend one? i'm serious. i don't want to read some trite, superficial book of formulas, though. i want explanations for why economic statistics and such are calculated the way they are. i want theory. never hurts to broaden my horizons.

i was reciting how a couple of my sociology explained "what inflation really means". to be fair, he wasn't referring to it generally, but specifically to economics since the 60s or so. but no doubt, inflation means something very different to economists.



Voltaire said, "Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers." nice use of the rhetorical. unfortunately, some of the people who need (more of) it already work hard for it.

why do we have to think of welfare as charity in the U.S.? in europe it tends more often to be viewed as an entitlement, a right - part of the social contract. one of my history teachers said that in France, "freedom" isn't "freedom to", it's "freedom from" (starvation, war, disease, ignorance).

If the rich are getting richer are the poor are staying even aren't we all getting better? Is Reagen's rising tide lifting our boats?



It's a capitalist thing, I think. The poor don't have a right to help themselves to my money. I can give it to them if I choose, but they can't demand it.



Interesting - "based on reported taxes". So if you are working for cash, like many immigrants, you're not even on the chart? I have a few under the table things every year that wouldn't show up. I wonder how accurate these numbers are...



There's another Republican out there!   

it depends on how you look at it. the poor, and even the middle class, are working harder for the same return. families have been switching from one-income to two-income for at least two generations now; more positions are now filled by low-paid, no-benefits temp workers; and there's no longitudinal study i'm aware of addressing qualitative changes to the workplace (how respected people feel, stress levels, volume of tasks and responsibilities). i wouldn't be surprised at all if jobs are "getting harder" in that respect.



you seem very concerned with how accurate numbers are in general. demographic statistics are rarely perfect, and numbers about the U.S. economy are imperfect, depending on your needs, in two ways: they don't represent the entire population (the chronically homeless, undocumented people and under-the-table workers), and they don't represent the entire economy (specifically, the black markert - did you know marijuana crops in the U.S. net more value than corn or wheat? imagine taxing that! and that doesn't touch on other drugs, prostitution or illegal gambling, just to name the big ones). if you wanted economic figures to be more accurate by including these considerations, you'd end up making them less accurate because numbers for these populations and markets can only be indirectly inferred. these are some major methodological problems demographic sociologists face. that's one reason i personally prefer using ethnographic means to answer a social question.

You're right, I guess I am. I've been enjoying the discussion and am amazed at how these numbers can be made to say anything. How can we discuss what is and isn't working if we can't quantify it? And it appears that the numbers and charts that have been quoted in this thread are the numbers that the government uses for economic planning. Are we really just rolling the dice and hoping for the best?

This is really rather disturbing. Sometimes I hate it when my eyes get opened.

you just articulated the reasoning behind my interest in methodology. i think numbers are a good way to get your bearings. they're a good way to look for relationships you might never have thought to be the case. for example, Emile Durkheim's Suicide found a strong correlation between suicide and, no only periods of economic decline, but also growth. why would people kill themselves when the economy is getting better? the relationship led him to the idea of anomie (normlessness). when the market improves, just as when it slinks away, things change. some people can't handle it when things change, and they off themselves.

the traditional idea of a sociologist is a demographer, but modern sociologists are just as often ethnographers. my own research was primarily ethnographic. this sort of method is much better for capturing things like worldview, the daily trails of a working mother, etc. i think government policy makers would do well to read more ethnography, but it's a case of powerpoint thinking at its worst. it takes a lot of time and page space to explain things qualitatively. numbers are easy to put in charts, and it's a lot less time consuming to look at charts and numbers than it is to read a book's worth of words.

numbers are useful. they're much more precise than words. they give you a sense of the extent of things. but numbers shouldn't be the sole means by which we make public decisions.

Hey Dystopic,

Wikipedia has a fairly accurate, albeit very technical, explanation of inflation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation

Since you're a student you can also just go to the University bookstore, pick up an introductory economics textbook, and read the chapter on inflation. My university had a 2 week returns policy, don't know about yours.

Speaking of economics, why is it that there are certain areas of the economy that seem to be immuned to the law of supply and demand? The ones that seem to opperate under their own economic laws and are able to sustain price increases for services that are like 300/400% higher than the inflation rate..... such as banks! government departments, insurance companies and petrol companies?

Let me make one thing quite perfectly clear. I am not my brother's keeper, and you are not mine. You owe me nothing, and I owe you nothing. I am an unemployed dirt-poor college student living with my mom and I have absolutely no problem with her kicking me out if she ever gets tired of my freeloading, just as I have no problem with the notion that your wealth is yours to spend it on whatever the hell you damn well please, and not something to be taken away by the state to be redistributed equally "for the betterment of all."

What would you rather have, some people being more miserable than others, or a society where everyone is equally miserable? I opt for the former, even if it means I live poorer, because it means I am not forcing someone else to make up for my own inadequacies.

It sucks for those of us who are poor, but some people have to be poor for there to be any incentive in getting rich. If everyone were equally better off, there would be no incentive for cheapasses like myself to do good in school to get my degree to get a higher-paying job to become rich, if the system you promote for your greater good replaces the system we have now.

Incidentally, replace the phrase "greater good" with "salvation" -- it's the same damn thing, only your God is the State.

the poor in the united states are rich compared to the poor, the middle class and sometimes the upper class in other countries

Dude, USA has the poorest class level of all the developed country and and the most numerous proportionnally.

Where you from man ? you think you can tells things like that in a serious debate thinking you are right and this is ok ?

This what american universty can produce ? ...charge like 20 000$ us by year... I prefer my almost free state-universty in Montréal and it's still more prestigious than 90% of american universty.

This is what we call welfare , equality and justice for everyone.
So the poor can perform in the capitalism system, because he is allowed to have all the chance he can.




So many of you speaks with the voice of cnn and walmart,

I understand now why USA is declining in every domain including military compared to the rest of the world.

In 1950 USa economy was 50% of the world PIB,

now it's 22% and it's getting down each year, soon the USA will depend on chinese products for survival. (in fact, I think it's already the case)

The more they will rely on chinese product, the life level of american middle class will fall and keep falling whil a small minority of rich will continue to make more money than they need to live like a kind. (We are talking a bout 5 to 10% of usa citizens)



Well, the point is that what I read here show a lack of education and/or combined with a strong propaganda and one-sided mind.

This is garbage debate with low-skilled people.

So I'm not surprise now why last year a texan political scientist ask me why we still communist society in Canada at his first trip in what you call "french canada".

This is the american elite ?

When you make general comment as above, you insult all who contributed to this thread. That shows the lack of education and one sided mind from your garbage comment. Sorry to copy your words but there is no better standard to rebuke somebody other than by their own words.

As for Canada, yes you guys are pretty smart up there with the way you run your country, and i hear your health system is pretty damb good too? I'm in Australia where we prefer to get ripped off by greedy private health insurance companies to buy yachts in the Bahamas with our money that could buy better hospital treatment instead!

Well maybe I was not clear enough.

My english still limited, I chose my word because there is some things I tend to forget and some things I'm just unable to write in a good sentance. (yes I'm french-canada,but I prefer Quebercer)

I know lot of people here are probably not dumb and are really smart person. Yes it was deliberatly general statement because I disagreed with lot of things I read there. I could also quote things I agree with but that was not my point here.

Sorry if someone felt offended, but unfortunately, I dont believe in politically correct debate simply because thats kind of debate are useless.


Of Course our health system kick ass. Some politicians and business try to ruin it, but it still handle good.

I dont need to pay private insurance, who are most of the times stealers that will try everything not to pay you back when you need it.

My public insurance cost me probably 200$ a year. For a person who earn 50 000$ canadian dollars each year, it would probably cost 500$ or a little bit more in term of tax.

But hey, your medications, your treatement, everything is free after that. (unless you want mamal implant or unecessary surgery)

This is what I call a superior system, a true one.

You pay small ammount of money, and you get everything you can after that.

Of course there is some problem, but most of thoses problemes are artificially created. The goal of that is to sell the idea to people that private system are superior when in fact, it is proved they are worst.


In the american history, there a moment where firefigther service became a public things because when it was private, sometimes they would let the fire burn if the person was not a member of that company.

The evolution want the things to be public. Of course small little things like food store and etc need to stay private. but essential things, even natural ressources, need to pu public, otherway there is abuses by single individual who want to benefits alone from this.

you should tell us thank you becouse we are paying for your medical system and your medicines

why do you think that the only country in the world without caps for medical is paying so much for it

becouse the medical research companies have to make money somewhere and canada won't let them nor will any other country in the world.

and if the usa puts caps on medical guess what it will go away.

want proof ok during the last year of clinton he put a cap on how much the companies could make for the flu shots. we ran out





you are talking percentage

i am talking actuallity

the medium wage in mexico is 100 a month

the minimum wage in the usa is 1200 a month give or take

i don't know what it is in canada

the majority of the homeless in america is there becouse they want to be.

i have this by first hand knowledge

Lots of uninformed elitists here.

If nobody is willing to help out solely for the sake of helping (ie, those of you who say you won't help out those in need), don't expect the US economy to go anywhere as we continue to churn out more and more publicly-educated idiots who can barely read after high school. There are so many people who could do so much more if we had better ways to prepare them for highly-skilled jobs, but because the ****ing money doesn't add up in the short-term, nobody worries too much about it.

I'd never claim I work super hard for my income, but as a husband and father of two boys, I find my "middle class" income pretty pathetic. You see, I have a child with a rare genetic disorder. He is mentally retarded. A drain on society, I'm sure some of you pieces of **** would say. He costs a great deal of money every year, both to the state and to myself (because of course the state has really low limits due to our awesome government). Of my $60k a year, about 20k goes to various taxes / social security / etc. Of the other 40k, somewhere around 15k of it goes to medication, diapers, special services, etc. for my son. The rest is split up between rent, car payment, food, etc. After all is said and done, my strictest budgeting cannot keep us out of debt. Why? Because of idiots like some of you who feel that helping situations like mine is my problem and nobody else's. We cannot get proper care for my son due to lack of state funding, so we are having to pay for a private therapist, which our insurance of course won't cover more than about 20% (which is a whole other topic I won't even get into). We cannot get what private therapists say is MINIMUM treatment from his school, so we have to hire an outside lawyer to do a battle for us that should never even have to happen. We cannot even FIND a place that will give him daycare (it's expensive to watch a difficult child, so golly gee what a waste of money to do that), so we can't see if it would be affordable to have my wife even TRY and get a job. Then again, I'd bet at least one of you ****ers would be happy enough to suggest we kill him off so our finances are a bit better off. The bottom line is more important, after all, than anything else, right?

As for the brilliant argument that the poor are doing better in the U.S., that just is BS. The poor may have more in some areas than they used to, I've no doubt about that, but the struggle to survive is as bad or worse. In the 50s a single income could often raise a family *and* buy a home. Today that's extremely rare. And why do people have more cars than before? Because they HAVE TO. Two people must work in order for people to stay out of debt. The average middle-class family today has it much worse off than they did in the 50s. They pay more of the income for rent, they have fewer opportunities to actually own their homes, and they're making less relative to the elite.

So when I see my CEO pulling in over 15 times my income (I am 10% of the web development team - without us, his income would be literally nothing), with better benefits and fewer hours in the office, and you try and tell me he deserves that money, I say you're either just like him, greedy and a totally worthless contributor to society, or you're ignorant of reality, and happy to drink the kool-aid that people like him offer you.

So by your arguments, how hard must the CEO of a big gas company work to deserve his income? Man, those guys are so awesome. They do so much for our country. They really work their asses off for that money they make. I'm almost sad when I ride my bike to work in order to avoid paying them more money.

[EDIT]

Oh yeah, for those of you who say I should work harder and find a "better" job, the jobs I've seen for my line of work sometimes pay as high as $120k or so. Those jobs are also in places like San Fransisco, Manhattan, and other places where cost of living is drastically more expensive for me to live, and chances of living close enough to work to spend time with the kids during the week (something fathers actually used to be able to do) are about nil. Two hour commutes are not for me.

Yes, that would be useful to know. How are we defining poverty?

Also, why is Capitalist poverty worse than any other kind of poverty? North Korea is about as far from Capitalist as you can get, and has much more poverty. Capitalist countries are donating aid to countries like North Korea.

i didn't say they were doing better in the usa i said that they were doing better than the poor in other countries

as for working two jobs that is mostly do to taxes. so if we do what you are suggesting taxes will go up to pay for it and you will end up with worse care for your child not better. of course then you also won't have a choice in getting better care for him/her either



this i blame on the teachers union and the liberals. send your kids to school so they can be baby sat not so that they can learn.

you control a population in one of three ways force, lack of education, and food.
you also teach them that the only way to survive is for the government to do it for you

as for saying anyone deserves what money they have. how can you say that they don't deserve it. that ceo had to either work his way up to where he is, or invest his money to get there. and probable both

by the way this thread should be on joeuser not here

Get out more. Seriously. I can read numbers all day but they won't tell me a damn thing at the end of it all. Look at your friends and family and see how they're doing. Then ask them to tell you about some people they know. You might be surprised to know what goes on out there, right in your own backyard. Look at your neighbors too, especially if you talk to them regularly enough to speak of more 'personal' things like income.
Aside from those of you in here who have divulged your income levels, mine is the norm for 'most' of those I know as 'friends'. True, you tend to gravitate towards those most like you but nonetheless, a good 80% of the people I know are making roughly what I do... and that is saaaaaad.
My take on it is simple. As long as the rich get richer and those of us 'stay where we are'... this is not good. My wages should be enough to cover ALL bills and expenses and general basic needs/wants for myself AND my wife. Hell, they should be enough that if I wished to have a child, I could do so without my wife having to go to work. As it stands now, both of US NEED TO WORK just to pay the mortgage and bills. No cell phones, no hi-speed internet, none of the frills associated with 'higher' living.
Now if you wish to have a shiny new necklace and things along those lines then yes, you should work that second or even third job to make ends meet if you need these 'luxury' items to make your life more satisfying. But as it is now, we are supposed to be 'enjoying' the benefits of living in this supposedly 'great' country called the USA. To destroy my quality of life in terms of my 'domestic' time, which should be there for my family, is not what the 'American Dream' is supposed to be to me.

Sorry for the unintelligible rant there guys...

Mexico is not a develloped country by the way.

When I mean poorest low level class, I mean if you consider it with other developed country.

European Union, Canada, Japan, Australia.

Usa is long behind them.


And no, medial campany keep charging lot for there medicine, it is really costly. But with all the people in Quebec making a contribution, it rend it acessible by all.

Thoses who pay more are thoses who have enough money to live like king already. So what if they are forced to share a little bit ?

I feel really conformtable with it.


My mom friends earn 75 000 canadian each year. He is really happy about the fact that he share 40% of in income with the society. There is still lot of money for him to enjoy the life and there is also a social salary and benefits that money cant buy. (by the way, he pay lot of income tax, but it gives him 3 months of vacations by year and lot of time to be with his family and live a good live. Hes not only living for working and paying debt.)

Life level is not only about money, it's about the services that are acessible in your country.

A poor in usa has no way to get inssurance ar anything like that.

In Canada like in all other develloped country, they have acess to a public system that wont charge them 5000$ for a broken legs. And, a poor in canada can go to university , he has the chance like everyone else. Education is a right, it's not a privilege.


------- ***
If you need to keep comparing USA with mexico and third world country to find that you are better than them,
------- ***


maybe it's because your country has a serious problem.