Wednesday, April 23, 2014

That's what I've been saying...

Professor Mark R. Rank of Washington University, co-author of Chasing the American Dream: Understanding What Shapes Our Fortunes, notes that far from a Feudal system, the United States is characterized by a great deal of variation in income.   Certainly, there is an inherited money, aristocratic class, but inter-class movement is quite common.

- More than half of all adult Americans will be at or near the poverty line at some point over the course of their lives; 

- 73% will also find themselves in the top 20%, and 39% will make it into the top 5% for at least one year. 

- Perhaps most remarkable, 12% of Americans will be in the top 1 percent for at least one year of their working lives.


The "top 1 percent", is such an unstable group that it makes no sense to lump them in a single group, or consider their actions over long (10- or 20- year) periods, because it does not contain the same group of people from year to year.

Citing tax scholar Robert Carroll’s examination of IRS records, Professor Rank notes that the turnover among the super-rich (the top 400 taxpayers in any given year) is 98% over a decade — that is, just 2% of that elusive group remain there for ten years in a row. Among those earning more than $1 million a year, most earned that much for only one year of the nine-year period studied, and only 6% earned that much for the entire period.

The IRS showed similar findings with respect to the top 400 taxpayers between 1992 and 2009. While 73% of people who made the list did so once during this period, only 2% of them were on the list for 10 or more years. These analyses further demonstrate the sizable amount of turnover and movement within the top levels of the income distribution.

Ultimately, this information blasts the notion of a rigid class structure in the United States based upon income. Rather, it suggests that the United States is indeed a land of opportunity, that the American dream is still possible. Poverty exists, for sure, yet rather than being a place of static, income-based social tiers, America is a place where a large majority of people will experience some form of wealth or poverty — but realistically both — during their lifetimes.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

X-Factor

The X-Factor Gymnastics competition was held at our local High School. Us "volunteers" got to help convert the gym into a a competition studio, that was fun (not). Although they have watermarks on them from the professional photographer, here are the best shots of Em. Although she did not place, the NSGA team took first overall.












Friday, February 28, 2014

All-District Band

Katie's performance in the All-District Band concert. The concert displays the talents of the 5th, 6th, 7th grade middle school bands, plus each of the high school bands. The performance below is two pieces by the 8th Grade Concert Band. Frankly, this is a better shot that we had live. Katie has a "habit" of placing the music stand right in front of her face. As such, we see her friends play, and are mostly blocked from viewing her. He's in the front, playing flute. You can't miss her.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Income Inequality

Wonder Land 
Obama's Favorite Gini 
The left will never support the solution to income inequality.
By Daniel Henninger, The Wall Street Journal
Feb. 12, 2014 6:53 p.m. ET 

In one of his most major "major" speeches late last year, Barack Obama said income inequality "is the defining issue of our time." Or any other time.

Those of us who are yoked forever to the policy debates recall plowing this ground in the 1980s, before much of the Obama base was born. This year's panjandrum festival at Davos called income disparity the biggest risk facing the world in 2014 (which must have let Iranian President Hasan Rouhani smile himself to sleep in his Swiss hotel).

We will arbitrarily date the start of the modern income-equality debate to 1912, when an intense Italian statistician named Corrado Gini invented the "Gini coefficient," which ever since has been the universal mathematical measure of income equality anywhere. Gini also wrote "The Scientific Basis of Fascism," but his coefficient survived among economists.

 It was Gini's coefficient that Mr. Obama invoked without citation in his speech when he said "statistics show" that income inequality in the U.S. ranks with Jamaica and Argentina. Mr. Obama then said France, statistically, has greater income mobility than the U.S. More on French equality in a moment. Politics first. Corrado Gini, the godfather of income inequality.

I'm going to guess it was this assertion—the U.S. is no better off than Jamaica—that was on the minds of Democrats when they started hearing that Mr. Obama's State of the Union speech would be an income-inequality barnburner. Press reports said Democrats facing re-election beseeched the White House to soft-pedal the "income inequality" brimstone and put in more about "opportunity." Which he did.

Amid the fog of this subject—what is fair and does it matter?— two political points deserve notice. Income inequality is a total loser as a political issue. But we should talk about it to force the left to say exactly what policies it wants legislated or imposed. By coincidence, a major experiment in the politics and policies of income inequality visited Mr. Obama this week—the French President François Hollande.

In 2012, French voters elected Mr. Hollande president to replace Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr. Hollande's campaign theme was, "The soul of France is equality." His solution to re-equalize France: Raise the top marginal rate on the wealthy to 75%, raise taxes on corporations, raise taxes on incomes above €150,000, and tax capital gains as ordinary income. This broad, rising tax trendline would be a key element of any set of progressive policies in the U.S. to address income inequality.

By last November, before Mr. Hollande's peccadillo problems, his approval rating had fallen to 15%. In a speech delivered New Year's Eve Mr. Hollande reversed course. The tax burden, he said, was "too heavy." He would cut it. He also would cut public spending because the state was "too heavy, too slow, too costly." The income-inequality left in France is screaming "betrayal." What did they want, political suicide? Probably.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, up for re-election in November, is resisting higher taxes on the rich pushed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, the progressive poster boy whose "tale of two cities" campaign produced victory in somnambulant New York City with 17% of the electorate voting. Hillary Clinton, whose campaign operation is filling with progressive operatives, has to hope Bill de Blasio's magic moment doesn't sink into Hollande land by 2016.

What would a progressive income-inequality policy agenda look like in the U.S.? Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate economist, offered a summary in a 2011 article for that famous journal of income inequality, Vanity Fair magazine. " Franklin D. Roosevelt, a purebred patrician," Mr. Stiglitz wrote, "understood that the only way to save an essentially capitalist America was not only to spread the wealth, through taxation and social programs, but to put restraints on capitalism itself, through regulation." He added that Richard Nixon "invested" in Medicare, Head Start and Social Security.

 We think we get it: Raise taxes and reflow the money into spending by the federal government on public programs. Merits aside, one may ask: What has the federal government done in recent memory to be entrusted with any such massive, permanent transfer of wealth? Perhaps we should consult first with the high Gini-coefficient French.

Let's cut to the chase: The real issue in the American version of this subject is the low incomes of the inner-city poor. And let's put on the table one thing nearly all agree on: A successful education improves lifetime earnings. This assumes one is living in an economy with better than moribund growth, an assumption no one in the U.S. or Western Europe can make anymore.

If there is one political goal all Democratic progressives agree on it's this: They will resist, squash and kill any attempt anywhere in the U.S. to educate those low-income or no-income inner-city kids in alternatives to the public schools run by the party's industrial-age unions.

 Reforming that public-school monopoly is the litmus test of seriousness on income inequality. That monopoly is the primary cause of America's post-1970s social-policy failure. And that monopoly will emerge from the Obama presidency and de Blasio mayoralty intact. So will income inequality.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Vail

Great trip to Vail. Five Minnesotans and one from Denver. It snowed prior to our arrival, and every day we were there. As you will see, the snow was awesome. Getting home was a different story. Our crappy 2-wheel drive SUV barely made it over the Vail Pass. They closed the road behind us, and a roughly 2 hour trip took more like four. Oh well.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Final JV Competition

Jazz competition
Kick competition

Monday, January 20, 2014

Winterfest

Emily's first gymnastics competition.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The Price of the "slight" Tax Increase

In typical popular rhetoric, we were told that a "slight" increase in taxes on those that "could afford it" was the right thing to do. The market continues to question why the Federal Reserve keeps pumping money into the system (QE 1, 2, 3...). The reason is they had to. The following graph show the impact on nominal GDP of the Obama tax increases. Note that the increases were only half of what he originally sought. GDP gas continued its upward trend, but only thanks to the enormous economic stimulus being provided by the Fed.


Thursday, October 17, 2013

Soccer time

Katie's soccer team finished the season against Waconia. They lost two of their best players this Fall to another team, so scoring was a struggle. Here is a couple clips of her.