The American Spectator

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(Page 6 of 13)

/p> p>Excellent piece. Reminds me of a friend who is so fond of saying, "Liars figure and figures lie." I appreciate the lesson provided by David to help evaluate some of the claims that get batted about so often. Next? A wage disparity male to female refresher course less we forget the facts on those contentions as well. br> -- Roger Ross br> Tomahawk, Wisconsin /p> p> In his charming arithmetic lesson, Mr. Hogberg sidesteps the underlying issues as described by Paul Krugman in the New York Times : br> /p>

Between 1980 and 2004, real wages in manufacturing fell 1 percent, while the real income of the richest 1 percent -- people with incomes of more than $277,000 in 2004 -- rose 135 percent. (8/18/06)

...even if you exclude capital gains from a rising stock market, in 2004 the real income of the richest 1 percent of Americans surged by almost 12.5 percent. Meanwhile, the average real income of the bottom 99 percent of the population rose only 1.5 percent. In other words, a relative handful of people received most of the benefits of growth....Even people at the 95th percentile of the income distribution -- that is, people richer than 19 out of 20 Americans -- gained only modestly. (7/14/06)

br> It is true that some of this effect may be due to new workers entering the workforce, but Mr. Hogberg seems to deny that too many Americans are becoming grotesquely rich while most of the rest tread water. Even our sometimes beloved Ben Stein, the amateur economist, agrees with me on this one. br> -- Abe Grossman

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