Robert Samuelson : Our Growing Inequality Problems ( Same Old whine )

RealClearPolitics ^ | 09/27/2006 | Robert Samuelson

[SirLinksalot]

WASHINGTON -- If you're in Asheville, N.C., stop by the Biltmore, the vast estate that George Vanderbilt III -- heir to a railroad fortune -- constructed between 1889 and 1895. You can tour most of its 250 rooms, including 43 bathrooms and an indoor swimming pool. When few Americans used electricity, the Biltmore had its own generators. To take the tour is to grasp one of the great advances of the 20th century: The gap between the superrich and most Americans has narrowed enormously. In Vanderbilt's time, most Americans lived in filthy slums or on modest farms. Now even the wealthiest among us live more like ordinary people than Vanderbilt ever did.

[SirLinksalot]

Did we ever get a long list of articles complaining about the gap between rich and poor when Bubba was POTUS ? Just wondering...

Because I seem to be reading a lot of them nowadays.

[Hegemony Cricket]

First part of the article does have some good advice, though - go see Biltmore if you get a chance. I toured it (almost 30 years ago now - time to go back), and it was truly amazing...

[massgopguy]

According to the book; Fast Food Nation:The McDonaldization of America, the peak of hamburger flipping jobs was in 1996.

[Vigilanteman]

I wonder if this is the same Robert Samuelson who authored an article in my college economic text predicting:

1. The Soviet Union was here to stay and we better learn how to adapt to their system by adopting the advantages of planned economies.
   
2. The 80 million or so Chinese killed by Mao Zedong and his regime needed to be balanced by a greater or equal number of those saved from starvation in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War.

Typical leftist claptrap-- impose a disasterous solution to a problem caused or worsed by their initial "solution" and then claim the result would have been even worse had they not done what the did.

[SirLinksalot]

I wonder if this is the same Robert Samuelson who authored an article in my college economic text

I think that would be Paul Samuelson. See here :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Samuelson

[shrinkermd]

The actual title should be, "Our Growing Envy Problem."

[Vigilanteman]

You are right! It was Paul, but the similarity in names and views (and more years than I care to count since then) sounds like they are two peas in a pod.

[fatnotlazy]

Did we ever get a long list of articles complaining about the gap between rich and poor when Bubba was POTUS ? Just wondering...
Because I seem to be reading a lot of them nowadays.


***

Heck no...there was no "inequality" under Bluedressstain Billyboy's watch. Didn't ya know that? (sarcasm)

And if I hear/read one more thnig about "tax cuts for the rich," I'm gonna hurl.

[Lancey Howard]

Yeah, my college econ books always seemed to be by Samuelson.
My son is now an econ major and he can't get enough Murray Rothbard.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

It's true the rich get richer. But in our economy the poor get richer too. Today, the poor in this country live like the middle class did during the '50's. And that's not a bad life. That's why the rest of the world is trying to break down our doors. As for the middle class today, they live a better life than the rich did a mere lifetime ago. God Bless America!

[Lancey Howard]

Ooops. Wrong Samuelson.
The econ guy is PAUL Samuelson.

[RJL]

If you're in Asheville, N.C., stop by the Biltmore, the vast estate that George Vanderbilt III -- heir to a railroad fortune -- constructed between 1889 and 1895.

Interesting that even with "our growing inequality problems" todays rich folks aren't living at the fabulous Biltmore, instead it's undoubtedly owned by a tax exempt organization selling tours.

Also, it's always good to know that this "inequality" problem will disappear, at least in the media, the instant a Democrat is elected President.

[lOKKI]

On a philosophical level, one of the things that I've learned to do is life is NOT to compare how I'm doing to how someone else is doing.

The proper question is: Am I doing OK?

My first lesson in this came when I was screaming through the mountains near Sun Valley in my Alfa Romeo (back in the 70's) and got passed by a guy in a Ferrari.

The wise old Mechanic who ran the shop I took the Alfa to told me:

No matter how fast you're going, there's always somebody faster.

It's always true in life. The Democrats just don't want to accept that. They want to slow down the fast ones.

[spintreebob]

R Samuelson seems to have a static "snapshot" approach that is out of touch with reality.

People's lot in life is quite dynamic, especially at the margins. Large numbers of married women get separated/divorced. They and their children have a sudden decline in living standard. Then they get remarried and have a sudden climb in living standard.

When penniless immigrants come here in large numbers, they swell the rolls of the poor. But most of those immigrants rapidly climb to construction labor at $15 and then $25/hr wages. They buy houses in my middle class suburbs and join the middle class. Of the 55% of new homeowners in my suburb that are Hispanic immigrants, about half have been here more than 5 years. But most buy their first middle class suburban house at about the 5 year mark. It takes them 5 years to go from penniless to middle class.

But then there are those stuck in poverty. They come from single parent (sometimes almost no-parent) households. (( won't even call them "families".) The public mis-education system fails them miserably. Then fall into a life of welfare, substance abuse and crime that creates a permanent poverty sub-culture.

Christ (or Nation of Islam) is the only economic answer for these people stuck at the bottom. Government programs, not even faith based programs that survive the ACLU, can help these people at the bottom. The only thing that government can do to help these people is to get out of the way of the religious zealots bent on saving the souls of these at the bottom.