1 - I didn't say "there is no data", full stop, I said "there is no data about the marginal dollar propensity to spend under the current conditions". The data I posted was from 2001 and 2003. Its not irrelevant, it may be considered suggestive of what would happen now, but it isn't data about now (which we not only don't have but really couldn't have)
2 - The data in my post is about the change in spending when there was a tax cut. That should correlate reasonable strongly, and probably is partially, maybe even largely, caused by the marginal propensity to spend, but is effected by other factors as well. Its not just a matter of "now I have $x more, so I'll spend $Y more, since without the additional $X its unlikely that spending would have been static.
3 - To the extent the data presented in that post do tell us something about the current marginal dollar spending propensity of different groups (and I think it does, its just not directly data of that point), it supports the idea that the rich (or at least the upper part of the middle class, it doesn't really break out the rich separately, since the highest categories are >$75,000, and >$100,000) are spend MORE per additional available marginal dollar, not less. |
