I> So --- IN FACT --- I did not ever actually write any such 'claim',
No. You did in fact make such a claim.
I you say "X is ridiculous", and I say "how could you say 'not X'" its pretty silly to then say "I didn't say not X". Sure you didn't use that specific wording, but you made an essentially identical claim.
I claimed
"The wealth continues to be transferred away from the wealthy, not to the wealthy."
You responded (right after quoting that statement with a "re:" in front of it, so its obviously a direct response to my statement)
"That claim is completely and utterly ridiculous when trends are examined over a longer term."
Then you posted a chart (which you've continued to post again) that has no connection at all to my claim, or your response that my claim is ridiculous. It simply doesn't show transfers of wealth at all.
If one person makes $1mil a year in his business, and another guy makes $30k a year. Then later the guy who had made $30k makes $20k, and the guy who had made a million makes $2mil, that is not a transfer from the less wealthy guy to the richer guy. In fact in such a situation, the richer guy would probably pay more taxes, and the less wealthy guy would be more likely to qualify for public assistance, so you would have an increase in the transfer from the wealthy guy to the relatively poor guy.
And even if "the rich getting richer and the non-rich getting poorer" was a transfer to the rich (and it isn't, unless the cause of the change is an actual transfer, which overall it is not), that doesn't describe the long term changes in income in the US, what has happened is rather that the rich have gotten much richer while the non-rich have gotten richer to a lesser extent.
Well even that is a bit faulty, because it treats the rich and the non-rich as if they where the same people all the time, while in reality people become rich and become non-rich, while other new people get born, or immigrate, while others leave or die. Generally most individuals have gotten wealthier over the long term. And in fact many of the new people in the group near the bottom are immigrants (in many cases, but not all illegal). If you just consider the people in the US, and look at income groups rather than individuals, it looks like this new poor person moving in, means the poor have become poorer (and/or that people are more likely to be poor), but they have also likely become wealthier, its just that their prior even poorer circumstances in a poorer country (likely but not necessarily Mexico) doesn't register in US statistics.
Of course in the recent recession things have changed and its been more of the rich getting poorer and the non-rich getting poorer, but not by enough to change the long term trend (and you did after all talk about "when trends are examined over a longer term"). |
