A first-class rant this morning! Yes, the New York Times is a sinkhole of sloth and depravity. What else is new?: Yastreblyansky: It's the Stupid, Economy!: "Hi, it's Stupid to say that it's still the economy, whatever David Brooks may think: Shorter David Brooks, 'It's Not the Economy, Stupid'.... 'The US economy is the best ever, so if you're not happy there must be something wrong with you, like not going to church or getting married often enough. This explains why life expectancy has declined three years in a row for the first time since 1915-18. It's your fault'. Looks like he thinks the Republicans might lose the election two weeks ago, but only time will tell...
...Disclaimer: I am not writing this because I think there is anything interesting or worth responding to in the Brooks argument. I think it's dumb, and we've dealt with it before. But he's got some new errors and deceits and instances of terrible writing and he still has a gig with the New York Times, so I don't have any choice.... Data collected by the Congressional Budget Office and interpreted by Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post, covering actually three and a half decades.... This analysis leaves out the effects of (mostly regressive) state taxes, but more importantly because of a wrinkle you can learn about from Austin Clemens of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, which is that the before-and-after groups compared in the study aren't the same people (those who are in the bottom quintile before taxation and the Earned Income Tax Credit aren't all in the bottom quintile afterwards), and if you control for that, cumulative growth in the bottom fifth is just 62% over the 35 years, or 1.7% a year—while the growth rates for the top fifth, and obviously the top 1% (7% per year!), are unchanged, since those guys don't get EITC....
We know very clearly that what's driving the decreased life expectancy is drug overdose deaths and suicides, which are characteristically taking place in rural areas, and what's problematic in rural areas isn't church attendance! It's poor employment growth as compared to booming cities and a lack of hope that things will get better among those with relatively less education...
#shouldread #journamalism #equitablegrowth
