Today brings a mixed bag for aficionados of the New York Times. The good news, assuming you enjoy reading the musings of Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, David Brooks et al., is that the Times' house columnists have been freed from behind the paid-subscription firewall of "Times Select."
On the other hand, Paul Krugman has decided that his column isn't enough to contain his wisdom, and that he will henceforth be inflicting his blog on us. He entitles it "The Conscience of a Liberal," which as he notes is also the title of his recent book.
Give Krugman credit for giving us fair warning. He does let us know that "the politics and economics of inequality will, I expect, be central to many of the blog posts." And sure enough, central to today's blog is the chart pictured here, which depicts the percentage of the country's total income earned by the top 10%.
In a nutshell, Krugman applauds the way income inequality declined under FDR, and rues the fact that in recent decades it has increased due to "the vast right wing conspiracy," which he assures us does indeed exist.
Most revealing are these two Krugman statements:
[The chart is] "central to how I think about the big picture, the underlying story of what’s really going on in this country."
And Krugman's conclusion [emphasis added]:
[T]he story of modern America is, in large part, the story of the fall and rise of inequality.
To which my simple response would be: why? Why should income equality be the most important gauge of Amercan society? The obvious -- but unstated-by-Krugman -- answer is that as a liberal, Krugman is committed not to equality of opportunity, but to equality of result. This kind of acute egalitarianism is an echo of Marxism's central redistributionist principle: from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
This is fundamentally antithetical to the principles of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" upon which this country was founded. Our goal should be equality before the law. Government should not seek to use its powers to re-engineer outcomes. That should, rather, be the result of individual endeavor.
You might call Krugman's inability, or refusal, to recognize this fundamental tenet of American philosophy . . . the unconsciousness of a liberal.
—Mark Finkelstein is a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net.
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What!?
September 19, 2007 - 07:35 ET by inquiringmindKrugman is a Liberal?!?!?!
"Krugman is a
September 19, 2007 - 08:28 ET by rimsky"Krugman is a Liberal?"
Uh, YEAH! And maybe an angry socialist too?
I actually read some of the postings on his blog. Not sure how I managed to make it through more than a paragraph without getting sick to my stomach. It's hard to avoid knee jerk name calling when you read this stuff. What a sick angry little man!
I'd be willing to bet that
September 19, 2007 - 08:35 ET by mattmI'd be willing to bet that Krugman makes at least 3 to 4 times the national average income. I wonder if he'd be willing to spread that around to those less fortunate...
Talk about economic inequity - Hey Paulie, wanna feel better about yourself - how about flinging me a couple ten thousand?
Exactly! So, when the
September 19, 2007 - 08:39 ET by rimskyExactly! So, when the redistributionist brown shirts show up at Paulie's door, he'll no doubt be Johnnie-on-the-spot, wealth in hand, ready to redistribute according to the needs of others.
You got it. I love how
September 19, 2007 - 11:40 ET by GregEYou got it. I love how even the rich liberals who want higher taxes for all don't volunteer any more of their income to the government than the government asks for. I questioned a liberal once on that about if Warren Buffet thinks taxes should be higher (and he does), then why doesn't he give the government a larger portion of his income in taxes voluntarily? If that's what he feels is right? The government will SURELY accept overpayment, you can believe that.
The liberal's answer??? Buffet doesn't do it because though he knows its the right thing to do, it is too small to have an effect.
Interesting analogy, maybe that's why Al Gore doesn't follow the preachings he makes on global warming. He knows it all sounds good but won't have any effect? Oh, but he wants us all to follow it, regardless of whether he does.
I'm telling ya, the mental disorder of the liberal mind is amazing.
Krugman does indeed echo
September 19, 2007 - 08:38 ET by BuxomAnnieMcGreggorKrugman does indeed echo Marx. You know, from a "godless"
perspective... the non-religious, or anti-religious portion of our
population believes that sex is the ultimate experience, and the even
distribution of money is the ultimate form of fairness. But from GOD's
perspective, he has little use of money...He has given every one of us
an EQUAL portion of what HE does actually value... and that is TIME.
Who here has any more, or any less that 24 hours in any given day? My
weeks still have seven days in them. I figure since time is equally
distributed umong us all... then time must be what is important to
GOD... time and what we do in that amount of time.
So glad to be here... so glad to be human.
Anyone take note of his tag
September 19, 2007 - 09:03 ET by AtillaKahunaAnyone take note of his tag for the events of 1929? "The Great Compression".
Yeah. Compression. So the millions of people starving to death and lucky to get a small handout from a soup line were HAPPY that the robber-barons went from multi-millionares to just millionares.
Yeah.
Hey Paul, what's your net worth? What is the Times paying you? What about the money from your book? I sure hope you don't make more than the median income!
Oh, wait. I forgot. These kinds of things are only for 'other' people, not him.
My bad. Go on about your sad little lives.
Kahuna
"The Conscience of a
September 19, 2007 - 09:47 ET by bassndude"The Conscience of a Liberal"? Isint that an oxymoron?
Save a SeAL, club a liberal!!
Liberals have too much
September 19, 2007 - 10:15 ET by rwestLiberals have too much conscience, that's their problem. Jimmy Carter wasn't a bad president because he was soulless, it was because he wanted to please everyone and apologize for everything.
Jimmy Carter was a bad
September 19, 2007 - 11:35 ET by bassndudeJimmy Carter was a bad president because he was a socialist, tried to impliment socialist ideas, embraced Castro and destroyed the military. Oh, and hes an idiot. Was then, is still.
Save a SeAL, club a liberal!!
Krugman argues that
September 19, 2007 - 10:19 ET by KC MulvilleKrugman argues that inequality must be fixed. He’s correct, to some degree. Competition creates winners, and the winners acquire advantages (better education, contacts, habits, etc.). When losers can’t compete, the winners refuse to improve, and then everyone loses. Krugman is also correct about the importance of manufacturing. Manufacturing is our solid foundation. Everyone has the right to make a living, but not everyone can be a hedge fund manager. The manufacturing base offers a place to do an honest day’s work and earn a decent living. The social utility of the manufacturing base has two parts to the equation: it’s not only to generate products, but also to give most Americans a decent place to work. When they want to export those jobs overseas, they argue that it will make cheaper products, but they don’t acknowledge the other half of that equation. We should protect our manufacturing base with prudent (although not hysterical) trade policies.
My argument with Krugman is the same argument with John Edwards. How do you re-establish the ability of the losers to compete? You can’t do it through taxes. That’s a political solution, and it plays to the emotions of the underclass, but it does nothing to resolve the problem that created the underclass in the first place. It pleases the prejudices of the underclass, but it doesn’t help them. You have to help the underclass to do better, not make the upper class do worse.
Pandering to the underclass isn’t respect.
In your first paragraph you
September 19, 2007 - 11:38 ET by MikeBIn your first paragraph you are mostly right. Even though American manufacturers have "outsourced" some jobs overseas, this country still has only a 4.5 to 5.5 percent unemployment rate. This unemployment rate is lower than the "natural" rate of unemployment. So, even though manufacturing jobs have gone overseas, it has not resulted in massive unemployment here.
There are many reasons, valid reasons, for manufacturers to export jobs. First is there are generally fewer government regulations and less red tape. Second, many of those manufacturing jobs go to places where the manufacturers don't have to deal with unions. Unions have their purposes, but eventually they become a huge drag on the employers. A case in point: the UAW. The automobile manufacturers having to pay 100% of the health costs of the retirees adds at least $2000 to the cost of each car they sell here in the states. (I think that is the correct amount.) The problems in the U.S. auto industry is not all the fault of the unions, but a good part of it is.
The garment workers union has all but destroyed the garment making industry in this country. Simply put, the unions end up pricing themselves out of the market. If a union or a government makes it impossible for a company or corporation to show a profit, the company or corporation has two choices: close, or relocate somewhere where they can show a profit.
"A communist is someone who reads Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx." Ronald Reagan
Agreed
September 19, 2007 - 13:46 ET by KC MulvilleThe manufacturing base has declined for several reasons; the role of the unions is certainly part of it. You'd hope that responsible unions and responsible managements will hammer out fair compromises, but those are few and far between, it seems. Of course, I only hear about it through the media, so there may be more successes than get reported.
The obvious -- but
September 19, 2007 - 10:22 ET by rwestThe obvious -- but unstated-by-Krugman -- answer is that as a liberal, Krugman is committed not to equality of opportunity, but to equality of result.
This is a classic example using a weak assumption to bolster an argument. Isn't there enough to say against this guy without resorting to sloppy name-calling and assumption?
Calling Krugman a liberal
September 19, 2007 - 10:52 ET by dabalCalling Krugman a liberal isn't "sloppy name calling", it's calling a spade a spade. Assumptions are made without evidence. Evidently, you don't agree that Krugman is a socialist of the worst kind, despite the volumes of evidence he himself produces.
rwest: with all due respect,
September 19, 2007 - 11:28 ET by Mark Finkelsteinrwest: with all due respect, what the heck are you talking about? Name calling? Did you notice that the name of his own blog is conscience of a LIBERAL??
Sloppy assumption? Did you notice that he says the equality of income is the central issue, and that clearly he favors it? That is another way of saying that he committed to equality of result. So really: what's your point?
more bad numerical analysis = victims...
September 19, 2007 - 10:40 ET by wizardjrOnce again, some limited intelligence, badly educated (e.g., public school graduate) dunce with a pen scribbles numerical stupidites and calls them profound.
The "top 10% of income earners" he is using is by dollar amount of income, NOT the normalized top 10%, as in multiplying all earners times their individual incomes and THEN finding the 10% cutoff.
SO WHAT?
In actuality what he has shown is that there are now more people earning the top 10% dollar amount than before - people move up! If you slice the lowest income (putatively zero) to the highest dollar income in 10% slices (as he has done) and then count the number of people in each income decintile (which he didn't do) you'll find out that the 'inequality' has resulted from Americans growing richer - more total folks at the top than before while all boats rise.
Mark. Krugman identified the Clinton era as..
September 19, 2007 - 13:35 ET by Gary HallMark. One has to get a kick out of Krugman's chart, after all he labels the era of "The Great Divergence" right smack in the middle of the Clinton years. There is no end to the liberal's (the MSM's included) ability to reflect on the economics of the Clinton years by simply jumping over the lake.
One thing I wonder is if
September 19, 2007 - 14:16 ET by picofaradpjfOne thing I wonder is if this chart considers population growth. At the start of the chart the top 10% would be about 10 million people. At the end of the chart the top 10% is about 30 million people. Plus I like how the Great Compression ( Great Drepression years ) is touted as some sort of good thing. I have a feeling the other 90% suffered alot more then the top 10% to create the great "ideal" middle class America.
An explanation
September 25, 2007 - 16:29 ET byThe chart depicts the % of income going to the top 10% of all wage-earners. This accounts for population increase. If it charted total or net income going to the top 10%, then we could ask about how population increase affects it - and it wouldn't make any sense. The real issue here is that this chart only accounts for income, not wealth, which gives us a better picture of inequality in America
Where?
September 25, 2007 - 16:24 ET byI read Krugman's piece, and I'm not sure where he states or even implies that he supports an equality of result ideology. I'm not sure anyone would.
I do however agree with this statement, "Our goal should be equality before the law. Government should not seek to use its powers to re-engineer outcomes." But the question I ask is, for whom is government using its powers?