Welcome friends!
Did you catch the recent article in the New York Times that noted that one’s income appears to be more dependent on one’s parents’ income in the US than in many other advanced countries? Pretty interesting stuff and definitely worth reading. Of course, that’s no great shock for anyone living in the US. I think it’s common knowledge that a huge gap has developed in the last couple of decades or so between rich and poor in this country and that rich kids have all kinds of advantages while poor kids are generally just lucky to get by day to day. Rich kids can and do sometimes fail, of course, and poor kids can and do sometimes succeed, but things generally turn out roughly as one might expect. (Paul Krugman wrote a typically insightful and entertaining article about this issue as well, which is also definitely worth reading.) I’m quite sure conservatives will have their own take on the issue: probably something along the lines that liberal socialism and big government must be hindering social mobility. But that would be missing the point, really. The point is that the countries that conservatives typically lambaste for being liberal and socialistic appear to have greater economic mobility than we do, just the opposite of what their philosophy would suggest.
However, what really caught my eye this time was one of the public comments on Mr. Krugman’s article by someone posting as Alex from CA. Alex appears to have been somewhat put off by the general tone of the article that there is something wrong with having lower economic mobility than many other advanced nations ... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website. All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee. Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right? If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then. Thank you my friends!
