We heartily recommend two recently appearing, blazingly brilliant columns for gentle readers' edification. Both, of course, reinforce our Seldom-Wrong points of view.
On economics, we have repeatedly expressed our lack of patience with concern about whether the rich are getting richer faster than the less rich. Our concern is whether everyone has opportunity, not equality. We therefore cite with approbation yesterday's WSJ column, made available for free by the capitalist American Enterprise Institute (N.B. that the capitalists offer the best freebies) by Arthur Brooks. Brooks notes survey data revealing that even ordinary Americans care less that Bill Gates is rich and more that they themselves have the opportunity to improve their own lot, however humble it might be. We merely add that we find that understanding to be both rational and moral.
On global politics, we affirm again that Charles Krauthammer regularly cuts through the nonsense better than just about anyone. His WaPo column today is no exception: just when the surge is working, both militarily and politically, Americans are losing their nerve in Iraq. So, to be obvious, let's all gather our nerve, and abandon the schedule that says, "Friday: long, twilight strugge against Islamo-facism, followed by lunch, tennis and cocktails at the club."
Someday, all the world will share such enlightened points of view, grim as they are for the fantasies of those who misunderestimate the real human condition.*
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*No brownie points for the person who notes the self-contradiction of that sentence.
2 comments:
I thought SWNID was skeptical of studies based on adjusted "real" income.
I'm skeptical of studies based on surveys. I'm even more skeptical of journalistic reinterpretations of studies based on surveys.
I skeptical of some calculations of real income, because they assume things that don't happen in actual economic behavior. Like the fact that inflation is low now because the cost of my renting my house from me just went down. I don't rent my house from me, so the fact that gasoline and milk are expensive is a much bigger deal than the fact that the rental value of my house just slid.
You and we are skeptical generally, I think. I do note that the writer is not so much a journalist as a professional economist. Those guys differ, of course, but note from the article the degree to which his analysis both nuances earlier judgments based on the same data and explains an awful lot about the economic behavior that we observe. On the latter, I note the continual failure of politicians who appeal to class envy to stir up anything resembling a populist uprising. That might be because people care less about relative wealth and more about opportunity.
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