Friday, April 22, 2011

Professor Horwitz dispels the myth of The Rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer

I like this video:



Hat tip: Miazagora

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

We homeschool and I like your blog, but this video is absurd. The most recent data he cites is from 1991. 1991!!!
Haven't you been paying attention to what's happened in the economy in the last 20 years!
It's a whole new poverty and wealth disparity ballgame.
Please.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I agree with the previous poster.

Henry Cate said...

I've put up another post just now with more recent data.

I heard once that often sayings with great truths conflict with each other. For example "He who hesitates is lost" has an opposite meaning to "Look before you leap." The first is saying don't wait around, get moving. The second is saying stop and think before you take action.

Both are true.

To an extent I think that applies here. It is hard to compare what the poor experienced twenty and fifty years ago.

It used to be that you had to hand crank a Model-T and sometimes it would backfire and break an arm. Today all cars have self-starters, radios and are often enclosed.

It used to be that phones all had land lines. Now most new phones are mobile, and even more than that many new phones have computers more powerful than the computers that ran the space shuttle.

How do you compare these changes? It isn't easy.

My perception is that the poor today have more stuff, better food and more opportunities than the poor did 25 and 50 years ago.

JJ Ross said...

"My perception is that the poor today have more stuff, better food and more opportunities than the poor did 25 and 50 years ago."

So do the rich! In spades and with less tethering to the rest of us and our realities than ever in recorded history. One conservative business commentator acknowledged that the super-rich of the world have literally "reached escape velocity."