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http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/03200.../new05_000.htm
http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/03200.../new05_000.htm
This shows that income changed relatively evenly across the board between 2002 and 2008. Except, adjusting for inflation, the top 5% did significantly worse than the other groups during this time frame in terms of change.
Wait... let me get this straight...Quote:
Originally Posted by FlashLackey
You are not willing to take the research of several professors of economics from The Paris School of Economics, The University of California, and MIT at face value, but you ARE willing to take the word of a single economist, who is promoting a new book, at face value?
Interesting.
Is this where you are setting the bar now in order to keep your ideology safe?
I just want to know this...
Did you follow your source's links and cross-reference any of the info?
If so, did you find it odd that what he stated couldn't be verified?
I mean, I'm not going to call him an outright liar, but it is pretty odd that he stated unequivocally that he debunked the research, proved it to the authors, and that they corrected and republished the papers, yet when you read the updated papers they say the exact opposite.
Example: Your man stated,
I followed his link and downloaded the PDF of the revised paper, but what I found on page 5 was this:Quote:
Another pair of researchers used the P&S data to come up with an equally implausible finding. Frank Levy and Michael Temin, two MIT professors, published an influential paper on the causes of rising inequality over the last 30 years “Inequality and Institutions in 20th Century America.” Using the tables from P&S, they computed that 82 percent of the income growth from 1980 to 2005 went to the richest one percent of tax filers.
It should be noted that P&S did not report the findings of Levy/Temin or Johnston. Yet when I showed Levy and Saez how sensitive the data were to the price index used, Saez changed the data on his website and Levy and Temin published a correction on their finding—only 50 percent went to the top 1 percent. I argued that more corrections needed to be made and found that just 39 percent went to the top 1 percent of tax filers.
And again on page 53 it stated:Quote:
In the Piketty-Saez data, the richest 1 percent of tax
filers claimed 80 percent of all income gains reported in federal tax returns between 1980 and 2005.
Odd, no?Quote:
B) The Share of Post-1980 Personal Income Gains Received by the Top 1 Percent of Taxpayers
As noted in the text, calculations using the updated Piketty-Saez data suggest that four-fifths of all pre-tax, pre transfer personal income between 1980 and 2005 (excluding capital gains) went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers.
I also couldn't find on Saez's website where your man claimed he changed his data.
Additionally, after reading through some of the other papers and articles regarding the methodology used and the similar critiques by both Stephen Rose and Alan Reynolds printed in the WSJ, I am thoroughly convinced that their arguments, methods and figures were explained in depth by the professors and completely dismissed.
You can read through several papers on the subject at Saez's website along with the original article by Alan Reynolds and the response by Piketty and Saez.
One of the funnier arguments was that P&S's use of tax data was less accurate than census data because people lie and don't file their taxes, but always tell the truth and send in their census forms.
All I could think about was how vague the ranges were on the census forms, how people could just fill in anything they wanted with no penalty, and how many news stories there were about people protesting and refusing the last census.
Yeah... much more accurate...
BTW, I saw what you wrote before you edited your post.
In addition to your "REAL DATA" you crowed about your census link showing the threshold of the top 20% as $100,000 with something along the lines of,
"See, the top 20% is $100k not LR's phoney 45K"
Yeah... no duh, Sherlock.
Now go back and reread my posts and do the math this time.
Your $100k is the total of a household containing 2 wage-earners.
$100k divided by 2 people equals... yeah, you guessed it.
The only difference is I used a figure I found of $92k off wikipedia from 2005 and you found a figure of $100k from 2007.
I would have gladly used the $100k figure if I had found it first because the extra $5k still doesn't mean diddly-squat in the bigger discussion, but congratulations, I concede full victory to you in splitting hairs and weaselwords.
Wear your crown proudly. :p
Actually, I'm taking the author (and I use that term deliberately) of your data own words at face value in admitting that the corrected data would produce substantially different results than he first reported.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue
The economist I cited has a pedigree and public career also. I do take it at face value that he wouldn't literally make up quotes for his peers. Doing so would be swift career suicide for someone in his position.
But, lets not dodge what is substantial here. He raises several specific points that you can try to counter:
A) IRS data only includes taxable income. This would exclude significant amounts of non-taxed income (entitlements, retirement, benefits, etc.) and skew the results.
B) The pricing index used for inflation calculations has been updated over time. If your authors used an old index it would skew the results.
C) Changes in household sizes would significantly skew the values over time.
D) Individual IRS filers would be counted in this data as separate households when many of them are kids living with their parents. This would also skew the data.
Those are all reasonable points, regardless of where they came from or who they are directed at. If you can't demonstrate that the data you've cited in this thread has accounted for those issues with using IRS data for income disparity "tables", I am calling your numbers debunked.
Where are the "updated" papers? I read his use of the link as being to the original paper. Not the correction. I could have missed it. But, I didn't see anywhere on that site that indicated that the paper you are citing was an updated one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue
Dismissing criticisms and refuting them are two different things. Of course some Berkeley economist churning out fodder for liberal thinktanks is going to "dismiss" criticism of his data.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue
I'm not going to waste any more time digging through their information than I already have. If you want to post arguments that you think justify not including untaxed income, not factoring for household size changes, using old pricing indexes, etc. in this data, I will check it out. That's your homework. Not mine.
Thank you, Adam Smith.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue
Is this the argument you are trying to make: "When any household has two wage-earners, whether they are parents, children or retirees, full-time or part-time it can be assumed that all earners are making an exactly even split of their reported household income."
I edited the post because I thought it read too uncivil and wanted to narrow down the point of posting the census data. But, since you want to push it the other way, yeah. Your idea that household incomes should be split evenly because there are two wage-earners is just as phony as the "tables" your EPI propaganda uses.
Do you have anything to say in response to the edited post? Do you continue to deny that the census data contradicts your thinktank numbers in regard to how incomes changed per quintile in that time period?
Apparently not, considering the only ones who seem to care are a couple of idiots arguing on a forum.Quote:
Originally Posted by FlashLackey
Fair enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by FlashLackey
Not only did Saez address all of Rose's and Reynolds' issues listed above and refute them in his methodology and additional papers that you refused to read, but also Gary Burtless, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and the Congressional Budget Office both concur.
The main question here is not whether inequality has increased or not.
Both sides agree that it has.
The debate over the use of different data sets boils down to just how great that increase is.
I started to go through all those papers again to reprint a bunch of quotes, but I'm sick of doing all the donkeywork and making long-a$$ posts that you either don't read or blow off with an unsubstantiated claim, so I'll just quote the reader's digest version from wikipedia instead,
As Burtless states in his paper on this subject, no data set is perfect. There are always going to be flaws in any methodology that can be criticized.Quote:
While the vast majority of economists believe that inequality has increased sharply since the late 1970s and during the tenure of George W. Bush, conservative and libertarian economists have attempted to refute claims of increasing inequality by pointing to flaws in the data gather of Thomas and Piketty. Economist Stephen Rose asserts that Piketty and Saez use an older method to adjusting for inflation, exclude government transfers, and they do not address demographic changes. Rose does, however, conclude that while inequality did increase, the increase has been exaggerated.[84]
Libertarian economist Alan Reynolds, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, makes similar assertions as Rose[85] [86] Gary Burtless, senior fellow at the centrist Brookings Institution, however, stated that Reynolds did not provide sufficient evidence to dismiss the findings of Saez, which are further supported by the CBO. According to him, "many of [Reynold's] criticisms are misguided or unfair given the goals of the Pikkety-Saez project... The CBO handles almost all the problems Reynolds mentions, and its calculations show a sizeable rise in both pre-tax and after-tax inequality since the late 1980s."[87]
The problem here is that Rose and Reynolds criticize P&S's data set for reasonable flaws that have already been adjusted for, and then substitute a data set that has even bigger flaws that have not been addressed simply because it better supports their ideology.
Both Saez and Burtless show why the census data that Rose and Reynolds rely on to make their case cannot be used because the forms do not accurately account for the top 2% of income recipients.
That is why the CBO, Burtless, Piketty, and Saez are forced to use tax records (and adjust for their flaws) in order to develop the accurate estimates needed for this study.
Bottomline is that no matter what the debate, you are always going to be able to find a handful of conservative "experts" willing to ignore the concensus of the majority on any subject from Global Warming, to Economics, to Evolution that you can quote in order to help you feel secure in your ideology.
I am just as certain that on other subjects there are going to be a handful of ideological liberal "experts" that are incapable of using facts when they don't fit their agenda.
It seems that the only rational path is to figure out which side of the argument has the concensus and which has the handful of kooks, and then try to avoid associating with the kooks.
To that end, I wish you the best of luck... as for me, the experts are in concensus and they have spoken so for all practicle purposes this debate is over and anything further is a waste of time and energy beating a dead horse.
I had a feeling that your argument would eventually steer to this form. Your argument consists of two common logical fallacies: argumentum ad populum and argument from authority
Nothing that you posted substantially addresses the points about Saez' data that I listed in any way that isn't a logical fallacy.
Ironically, the CBO, who you are heralding here, provides data that makes your argument look even worse. As you can see in the following chart, according to them, the top 20% made on average $184k in 2006. Even with 2 earners splitting that amount evenly, that is a pretty good amount for most people to make at some point in their lives.
http://www.cbo.gov/publications/coll...tax_income.pdf
Whatever the CBO supposedly agreed with Saez about, they do not agree with Saez' table of cooked income numbers. That wiki article you quoted is full of similar claims without citations to support them. Did you write it?
Did you also notice that according to the CBO, income for the top 1% went up way more during the Clinton years than during the Bush years?
Interesting isn't it?
you both sound like your right, and this is why politics is bad, spin and twisting and lies all of which deceive normal people like me who don't spend 16 hours a day reading through 800 page documents just to find out how much i'm going to pay in more taxes and where those taxes are going.
****ing corrupt system
LOL
FL, do you even know what point you are arguing anymore or are you just arguing for the sake of being contrary?
Because now it seems you have completely derailed and are just talking out your ass due to the fact that you are one of those people who are incapable of admitting when you are wrong.
Every point you listed has been covered, accounted for, and sourced.
Unfortunately you are so desperate to be right that you won't even acknowledge or read the evidence.
All you need is to find one kook that supports your opinion, and your search for truth is over.
So be it.
You have no other arguments or new evidence that hasn't already been proven to be false and you can't answer to any of the counterpoints.
As I said,... this is a dead horse.... it is bleeding demised... it is an ex-horse... it has pulled down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.
And since it now seems that your reading comprehension has suffered the same fate as your basic math skills, let me bring it to your attention.
Look at your latest CBO link that you think means something it doesn't.
Notice the word at the top describing what all those big numbers of income on the page are?
The word is "Average".
Can someone else who passed first grade math explain to FL that an average is not the lowest number in a set or the highest number because he apparently can't grasp the concept?
Congratulations FL, with that final blow you have successfully turned this horse into nothing more than a grease spot on the pavement.
Of course, you will be unable to grasp that either so I fully expect you to come back sputtering "ad hominem" or some other lofty latin phrases instead of dealing with the facts... as usual.
While I agree with you about the ****ing corrupt system, the problem here is that the kooks make "reasonable sounding" arguments in the hopes that no one will bother to dig any deeper into the facts.Quote:
Originally Posted by silverx2
That is the whole premise behind the creation of FOX News and their stable of talking heads.
To spoonfeed people like FL with just enough info to be dangerous and stand fast to their masters' ideology no matter what the facts may be.
But how do I, or anyone else for that matter, know that You are the one telling the truth?
Its like that scene from Labyrinth with the 2 guards, one always tells the truth, and the other one Always Lies. You can never be sure which is which because they will always counter what the other says.
Nah! http://nyan.cat/ will do it even if you lower down the volume
Then it should be very easy for you to cut and paste the arguments and their sources.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue
You insisting that other people have refuted an argument is not a defense (I can look up the logical fallacy if you need?). It's your job to find and deliver your own defense. I'm not going to dig through a bunch of random papers for some non-descript defense that you claim is there.
Honestly, I think you know you've lost this one but want to leave the discussion with an air of mystery so people might think you had a supported point.
Show to me or explain the evidence that you are already aware of.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue
As someone once said, one party declaring that a debate is over is usually a sign that it is not.
Wow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue
Notice the word that I used in reference to the CBO numbers. There it is! "average". How you became under the impression that I didn't realize these were averages can only be explained by your own lack of reading comprehension of my statement.
Yes. What a "blow". :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue
The statistic is that most people in a bottom 20% household go to a top 20% household at some point in their lives. The average amount people make in the top 20% is the amount those people moving to the top 20% will make, on average. The statistic counts people that make more than the bare minimum in the 20% range.
You seem to be trying to change the statistic to be this: most people in the bottom 20% go to the minimum that those in the top 20% make at some point in their lives.
Your previous argument was a logical fallacy. That is a fact.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue
This new argument is just amusingly false. I clearly indicated that the numbers were averages and you accused me of not knowing they were averages in flamboyant fashion. This is the lofty latin phrase I attribute to that: argument ad no ****e.
People move from income groups during their lives but you want to pretend that everyone stays in the same group forever, incomes going up with the charts rather than with the changes in their lives. You have offered no valid defense for the income disparity complaint in light of this fact.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue
You use figures from a liberal thinktank that get their information from a berkeley economist that massively exaggerate the differences between income groups. You cite the CBO in support of that economist even though the CBOs numbers show a completely different pattern in terms of income growth.
Yet, I'm on the "kooky" side that is spoonfed bad information. As I said from the beginning: "Good one."
It's a great point.Quote:
Originally Posted by silverx2
I think that the unfortunate answer is that there is no way to know which side is right without spending a lot of time researching the issues yourself.
Not everyone has the time or inclination to do that. So, a lot of people just pick a side like a horse in a race, based on superficial reasons (who their grandpa likes, who seems like their kind of person, who has the best name, who isn't going to be controversial to support at work, etc.).
Unfortunately you really can't.Quote:
Originally Posted by silverx2
Personally I wouldn't just take my own word for it because like everyone else, I have my own biases.
The only way to really know the truth is to do the homework yourself, read through the evidence, and make your own decision... something most people are not willing to do, or apparently in FL's case, afraid to do because if he did it would put an end to his argument.
*Edit*
LOL. Beat me to it. Apparently we agree on one thing.
Ok. Since you insisted, I went through the Saez paper, looking for explanations of the points I listed.
There is only one that I see being addressed at all: changes in household size.
Saez argues that household changes were uniform between income groups. He offers no source or data to support this assumption. So, you will need to supply that if you believe it to be true.
Furthermore, even if household changes over time were uniform between income groups, that doesn't mean that factoring them in wouldn't significantly change the data. In fact, it would cause all income groups to show more growth.
Not only did Saez not address the issues you claim he does, he confirms that the problems are in the data when describing his methodology. He specifically lists the things that are counted as income ("salaries and wages, dividends, interest income, rents and royalties, and business income") and they do not include entitlements and benefits. He removes a massive amount of income that disproportionately calculates into the lower groups incomes.
This is a classic case of garbage in, garbage out statistics.
He also confirms that the individual filer problem is part of his data:
"Because our data are based on tax returns, they do not provide information on the distribution of individual incomes within a tax unit. As a result, all our series are for tax units and not individuals."
No mention at all about his methodology for computing inflation, whether he used an updated pricing index, etc.
but i mean even if i spend a bunch of time researching, how do i know that what I'm researching is legit.
Its just a really sad state of things because there is no real, Legitimate unbiased location where you can get just the cold hard facts of whats going on. I like that thing where you type in how much you paid in taxes and where you live and it tells you what your taxes went too. General population america needs more of that, this is what your putting into the system and this is exactly what it goes to.
Then each time a new bill gets proposed do something similar, "your taxes are going to go up X amount, this is what that X is going to go to
The problem with that is that you can't trust an unchecked government either.
The CBO for example gets abused as a source at times in this way. Since they work for the government, they are obligated to research what the government asks them to. They will be asked to give economic projections given a number of assumptions. Those assumptions might be wildly unrealistic about the "savings" or "spending cuts" that the government will actually make. But, they have to report publicly what the outcome is based off of deliberately phony numbers. Garbage in, garbage out.
It's a nice, practical idea to have internet tools that will give straight answers about this kind of thing. But, I think they will always be very vulnerable to manipulation. In some ways, they might be more dangerous than helpful if everyone assumes they are always legitimate and isn't double-checking them.
As far as research goes, I think that you can eliminate quite a bit of question by looking closely at the details. For example, the problems with the data that LR has posted in this thread can be specifically identified and understood. The authors of the data clearly explain what they did and we can understand why it will give inaccurate results. From there, I don't think it's difficult to see what the motivation is when the data comes from the most liberal university in the country and is being used by a well-funded liberal think-tank like EPI.
But you say that as someone that is staunchly AGAINST what that data is showing so your opinion on it can't be taken at face value.
Elizabeth Warren is trying to avoid being shanked in dark alley for trying to fix that. http://www.consumerfinance.gov/Quote:
Originally Posted by silverx2
Yes. But, I don't expect anyone to agree with me just because I say it. I expect them to agree because they also understand the evidence and logic for themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by silverx2
For example, it doesn't require you to trust my opinion in order to understand how excluding massive amounts of income that disproportionately go to lower income groups would substantially alter the data.