Yesterday, I picked up a book, America: What Went Wrong by Donald Barlett and James Steele. The amazing thing about the book is that it was published in 1992 and yet it could have been written this year. And in fact, it is kind of like a user friendly version of Thomas Piketty’s new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Except that it deals with a lot of other cool stuff. For example, it shows how deregulating the airline industry caused there to be fewer companies and the cost of travel actually went up.
I haven’t read the whole book and I don’t intend this to be a review of any kind. It is just that the book is 22 years old and it starts with an info-graphic to demonstrate how bad things had gotten. In 1959, the top 4% of Americans made as much as the bottom 35% of Americans. Actually, that number alone strikes me as ridiculously unequal, but of course, those were the “good ol’ days”! Thirty years later, in 1989, the top 4% of Americans made as much as the bottom 51% of Americans. Note also: this is just wage income. By this definition, Mitt Romney, who makes roughly $20 million per year, probably wouldn’t even make it in the top 4%. So this way of looking at inequality really understates the problem.
Well, I couldn’t see that info-graphic without wondering how things had changed. In fact, the authors even say, “If the trend continues, sometime early in the next century the top 4 percent of individuals and families drawing paychecks will earn as much on the job as 60 percent of the rest of American workers.” I love this kind of stuff and I wondered if I could find the current data. As it is, everyone does things about the 1% and the 0.01%. Well, it turns out that the IRS has a treasure trove of data for geeks like me.
It’s not easy, of course. They provide big spreadsheets with numbers that are not at all what I was looking for. So I had to do a bunch of calculating. What’s more, I had to make a few assumptions. But this is important: all the assumptions I made cause the inequality to be understated, not overstated. So I worked out the numbers for 1993. This was kind of a test to make sure that I was doing it correctly, since I already had the 1989 number: 51%. And indeed, my 1993 number looks about right: 53.0%. So I feel pretty confident in this.
The most recent data available from the IRS are back from 2011, and although I’m sure things are worse now, it gives us a good idea of where we’re at. My 2011 number was: 58.7%. Before the crash, it was 56.8%. I think what we are seeing here is the standard narrative. During the Clinton years, inequality kind of flatlined and then during the great leadership and tax cuts of the Bush the Younger administration, it started to increase again. And then, we got the housing bubble bursting and the financial crisis. The government, of course, took care of the financial crisis (the rich), but didn’t do much of anything about the housing bubble (homeowners and construction workers and pretty much everyone). So inequality again shot up.
It’s very interesting I think. Barlett and Steele were right on with their 60% number 22 years ago. It makes me think about the old joke, “Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything!” It’s almost exactly the same thing here. In the case of the weather we just can’t do anything about it; that’s the joke. Well, given that we pretty much live in an oligarchy, there is really nothing we can do about inequality. The top 4% of the country are the only ones who our leaders listen to. Half the country has managed to be so focused on fake scandals and a few thousand desperate children fleeing their countries, that they don’t notice that their birthrights have been stolen. And the other half of the nation is too busy just trying to survive to vote most of the time.
You have to ask yourself, “How bad can it get before the people really do rise up?” Well, the rich are figuring that as long as there aren’t bread lines, they are safe. And I think they are right. Still, if I were them, I’d invest in a little insurance by way of reducing inequality. But I’m a careful man. And the rich aren’t careful. The conservatives aren’t careful. So I don’t see change coming. If I live another 50 years, I certainly don’t see that number going below 58.7%. I think the American people will be willing to accept a number well into the 70s. And by then, it may be to late. Maybe it already is.
Last year, I wrote a rather angry article, 
The best example is a 
Tomorrow will be the economist Dean Baker’s 56th birthday. Last year 
Many years later, Elmyr de Hory made something of a living forging Modigliani. He did a lot of other people’s work too, but I think his Modiglianis are his best. He was very good. Here’s the only one I could easily find, but you can well see how de Hory fooled so many people for so long—he was good.
I was over at the library, just roaming around. That’s the great thing about libraries and used bookstores: you never know what you’ll come upon. That exists online with blogs, but not at, say, Amazon. For one thing, you don’t get to browse older books. And the newer ones where you can “Look inside!” you are limited to what it has decided to show you. You can’t look at the table of contents and think, “Chapter 3 looks interesting, let me take a look at it!” Amazon has told you as much as it thinks maximizes its profits. But as used bookstores drop like flies, libraries continue on.
Another day, another birthday. Lots of interesting birthdays. But do you ever just wake up in a foul mood? (One morning my wife woke up in a fowl mood and flew away!) If it weren’t for caffeine, I don’t know what I’d do. But it hasn’t helped thus far today. So I specifically picked a birthday that would allow me to write as little about the person as possible and just rant. Are you ready?
Jonathan Chait wrote a really good article earlier this week, 
I saw this sign from a protest against the kids who have fled the violence in Central America. It is literally true: the Bill of Rights applies to citizens. But of course, that’s not what the sign means. It means that the Bill of Rights only applies to citizens. This is a common and totally fallacious belief.
On this day in 1907, the great blues singer and guitarist 
It’s your fault America. Your the ones who like hyper-produced “cute” boys and girls performing your music. You’re the ones who want all real emotion and authentic humanity taken out of your music. You are the ones who have elevated just the right reverb on the digital snare drum above songwriting craft and inspiration. And above all, you’re the ones who have allowed auto-tune distortion to soil every mainstream hit for the last decade to the point where you think its a singing style and not an algorithm for fixing inaccurate singing. So it’s your fault and I want you to shut up about it.