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Why should anyone feel guilty for having money and sending their kids to private school?
Or maybe he wrote this article during one of those drunk binges.
I live in Oakland and the private Catholic Schools are well represented by those of low and modest incomes... the parents do without so their child can attend and many receive a break and in the High Schools there are work opportunities to offset tuition.
At the risk of wading into the ongoing argument here, between the various cognoscenti... the person who says that it's very unlikely for most people to ever break into "the elite" (by whatever designation), is absolutely right - that is the very definition of "elite". The great lie underlying American mythology is the supposition that any hard-working page can become king. Well, some actually do. But until we have a kingdom of kings, most pages won't become royalty - no matter how clever or dedicated they are.
While absolute progress, such as rising standard of living, is not zero-sum - relative progress is, also by definition. For somebody in a lower-quintile to become upwardly mobile, to join the highest quintile - well, somebody in that highest quintile has to become downwardly mobile. We can all do better collectively, replacing mud-huts with tidy single-family homes. But if everyone gets a palace, those palaces become McMansions. For a parvenu to gain a palace, its current resident has to be displaced.
Thus the dark underbelly: for more Americans to become upwardly-mobile, more have to become downwardly-mobile. Who'll be the first to volunteer?
Thus the dark underbelly: for more Americans to become upwardly-mobile, more have to become downwardly-mobile. Who'll be the first to volunteer?
Not so at all. If more Americans become upwardly mobile that means the economy is expanding. Not everyone can be a manager, business has to expand to produce more management or upper echelon positions. Those that don't move upward become static, not downwardly mobile.
Not so at all. If more Americans become upwardly mobile that means the economy is expanding. Not everyone can be a manager, business has to expand to produce more management or upper echelon positions. Those that don't move upward become static, not downwardly mobile.
you are, of course, missing the point of absolute vs relative. By definition, each quintile of population must contain 20% of the folks. So if you or I move from the bottom 1/5 to the next higher 1/5, someone else must by definition drop to the bottom 1/5th. That doesn't mean that person took a pay cut (absolute). Just that the demarcations of the quintiles have changed (relative). Jeebus.
There is of course its own debate, as to how prosperity is being captured... (1) is the entire nation becoming better-off, with the more affluent merely proportionately more so? Or (2) is most of the nation mired in place, with all of the gains captured by a thin sliver at the apex? Or (3) is there really no comprehensive improvement at all, there being only relative losers and gainers?
I disbelieve (3), and subscribe to some combination of (1) and (2). But one important point of the cited article is to dispel the belief that the totality of gains have been monopolized by the very top. Instead, if the article is right, the entire top quintile is doing pretty well. That's 65 million Americans! There may be little (too little?) movement across the quintiles, but even so, that's 20% of Americans who have much for which to be thankful, and not merely 1% or 0.1% or whatever.
you are, of course, missing the point of absolute vs relative. By definition, each quintile of population must contain 20% of the folks. So if you or I move from the bottom 1/5 to the next higher 1/5, someone else must by definition drop to the bottom 1/5th. That doesn't mean that person took a pay cut (absolute). Just that the demarcations of the quintiles have changed (relative). Jeebus.
this is the argument for why increasing minimum wage doesnt work as well, they get more but everything costs more and they are still at the bottom of the social ladder
we dont need people to be managers in a growing economy, as it grows people become their own bosses or gain better jobs
the people replacing the older workers are younger workers. 20 million gen z will be entering workforce, there is your new bottom 20% until they gain experience
I'm an economics professor/researcher and I haven't read National Review in 20 years.
Show me the "actual data" you seem to have. My guess is you are misreading it or you don't have it or you are accidentally parroting the widely disseminated but mistaken reports that have made the rounds on left wing media the last few years.
I'm not deflecting anything, with respect, you've made several broad brush claims and have offered nothing but your words.
I'm asking you to at least support your claim. I'm betting you can't.
You should scurry off to the internet and learn the difference between absolute and relative mobilities in the this context.
The fact is we have too few high confidence data sets regarding intergenerational mobilities across the first world to make broad conclusions.
The guy claims he worked on the Council of Economic Advisers from the Carter Administration through the Clinton Administration. But he seems to have little grasp of economics. My guess is that, if he is telling the truth, it was in the mail room. But I doubt even that.
this is the argument for why increasing minimum wage doesnt work as well, they get more but everything costs more and they are still at the bottom of the social ladder
In the real world, it is now known that changes in the minimum wage that are comparable in scope to recent examples of it do not result in observable impacts on either inflation or unemployment. The numbers of people and amounts of money involved are simply too small to have a measurable effect.
At the the same time of course, the purchasing power of the minimum wage declines every day, and like victims of Chinese water torture, the drip-drip-drip erodes the day-to-day situation that minimum wage workers have to confront. Increases in the minimum wage do at least restore some portion of lost purchasing power to those who have lost it.
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you are, of course, missing the point of absolute vs relative. By definition, each quintile of population must contain 20% of the folks. So if you or I move from the bottom 1/5 to the next higher 1/5, someone else must by definition drop to the bottom 1/5th. That doesn't mean that person took a pay cut (absolute). Just that the demarcations of the quintiles have changed (relative). Jeebus.