You and your “conservative” evidence to the contrary are deniers and should really just shut up and stop hating the Working Man.
We simply can’t have a proper and intelligent discussion on how to fix the problem if you keep bringing in scholarly studies suggesting that there isn’t one.
I can’t express how much fun it would have been to have Jonathan Chait on a jobsite for a week or two back fifteen years ago, watching him beat himself to a pulp with stud-lumber or lopping off a finger with a circular saw. Clowns like him aim to run the world for everyone else, but couldn’t navigate their way across an unskinned floor frame to save his life, and more important, wouldn’t know what it means that they can’t.
JR Nyquist, Totalitarian Methods (h/t Maggies’ Farm):
The CBO report says, essentially, that as government interference in the market has increased over the past 30 years, so has the economic benefit of those who cozy up to the government. One need only look at the economic growth of the Washington metro, as compared to the decline of everyplace in America that used to build useful things, to see that this is the case.
How is it that Chait can look at this report and the evidence before him and advocate even higher levels of government corruption? How is it that Chait can look at the performance of the last thirty years of Congressional dysfunction and think that we need to give them even more power and money? How is it that Chait can look at himself in the mirror and maintain that he’s part of the intelligentsia? Or even that he’s a decent human being?
He’s hoping the bear will eat him last.
Jonah Goldberg’s evident friendship with this Chait fellow has always put me looking askance at Goldberg himself. I leave it for the most part with the proviso that there must be something there about Chait I can’t see that Goldberg can, but somehow even the proviso doesn’t overcome my unease.
I’ll leave off expanding on the humor inherent in asserting there is no debate then giving both sides of the debate, and ask why that is assumed to be the debate we should have?
Seems to me the debate should be about how to make everyone wealthy, never mind the difference between the wealthy and the super wealthy. America has been the most successful at accomplishing that than other society in history. I mean, when you have an obesity problem with the poorest segment, things are going about as well as can be expected.
Asserting there will be a massive increase in inequity if the republican plan is followed requires a very loose concept of the word inequity. Any assumption of individual initiative must be disallowed.
It’s always something and the answer is always more government control. Too bad they aren’t like cats because then we could distract them with fuzzy mice on sticks and laser pointers.
#5 sdferr:
I always assumed they were both Star Trek nerds or something like that.
Heh, Perry gets it:
Constantly claiming the “rich” are not paying their fair share is not an attack?
If He respects success so much, why does He only and always reward failure?
Jonah Goldberg’s evident friendship with this Chait fellow has always put me looking askance at Goldberg himself.
The friendship must be based on something other than common political/economic policies. I’ve been friends with a really far-left atheist before: we discussed everything BUT politics and religion.
He’s hoping the bear will eat him last.
He’s hoping to BE the bear.
This income inequity thing is the talking point of the day it sounds like, I just heard it on the top of the hour news. Apparently it’s just horrible.
Ryan is right to talk of equality of opportunity as the counter argument. Unfortunately the core of that argument, the need for individual initiative and responsibility to achieve success, is too dangerous for most elected politicians to make, and it is a meaningless phrase without that element.
Even if Chait was right about inequality being a huge problem (and he’s not), one must still wonder why he has such faith in the government to fix it.
*is too dangerous for most elected politicians to make*
While I see your point, at the same time, the people that wouldn’t vote for a politician that took that position are unlikely to vote republican under any circumstances anyway. But, conservatives and some independents may appreciate a politician who is an advocate for their lifestyle, as opposed to constantly always being concerned about the poor only.
[…] “For liberals, income inequality is the new global warming” We simply can’t have a proper and intelligent discussion on how to fix the problem if you keep bringing in scholarly studies suggesting that there isn’t one. […]
To bolster my comment @6:
uh-oh, we’ve moved from will Washington collapse to why Washington will collapse.
Let me see if I have this correct: Socialists want everyone to be equal even if all are poor; Capitalists want all to be rich even if some are richer than others.
Awesome, bergerbilder. I Tweeted it.
Seems to me the debate should be about how to make everyone wealthy,
Congratulations. By any objective standard, everyone in America already is. Certainly 90% of the rest of the world wishes they could be as rich as our poor.
#1
Word.
inequality.The lefts argument is absurd on its face.There will always be inequality. In every aspect of life.Good god. Why do these people desire everything to be grey, to be mediocre?