David Brooks Is Tired Of All This Income Inequality Talk

[ProSense]

David Brooks Is Tired Of All This Income Inequality Talk

David Brooks thinks the emerging debate over income inequality is totally missing the point...stop blaming the rich.

At the top end, there is the growing wealth of the top 5 percent of workers. This is linked to things like perverse compensation schemes on Wall Street, assortative mating (highly educated people are more likely to marry each other and pass down their advantages to their children) and the superstar effect (in an Internet economy, a few superstars in each industry can reap global gains while the average performers cannot).

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The primary problem for the poor is not that they are getting paid too little for the hours they work. It is that they are not working full time or at all. Raising the minimum wage is popular politics; it is not effective policy.

As Brooks sees it, the framing of the income inequality issue "needlessly polarizes the debate," which he said should be more focused on single mothers and, one his favorite tropes, "the fraying of social fabric." Brooks argues that too many young men "are engaging in behaviors" — smoking pot? — "that damage their long-term earning prospects."

Dean Baker over at the Center for Economic and Policy Research made quick work of these arguments, pointing out, among other things, that Brooks cited an outlier study to support his opposition to raising the minimum wage and that empirical evidence indicates that the "social fabric" is not exactly in tatters.

Baker also wrote that it's misleading to lump the top one percent of income earners with the next four percent.

First, it is just wrong to attribute the run away wealth and income at the top to five percent of the work force. Those in the 95th to 99th percentile are roughly getting their share of the growth of the economic pie. It is only the top one percent and primarily the top 0.1 percent who are really pulling away. And Brooks has seriously misrepresented the causes of their runaway wealth. His "superstar" story depends largely on changing rules in ways that support this concentration of income and wealth. For example, we have had the lengthening and strengthening of copyright laws. Strict enforcement of these government granted monopolies is very important for concentrating wealth in the modern economy because the Internet would otherwise let everyone have copies of everything at no cost.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/david-brooks-income-inequality

Obama weighing executive action on minimum wage?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024346133

[spanone]

1. i'm tired of david brooks

[librechik]

4. word n/t

[liberal N proud]

2. Not near as tired as the poor and underpaid are of income inequality

What a lame asshole.

[pangaia]

3. Wow! I have heard Brooks say some really, really stupid things,

as have we all. I have seen him act like the silly little twit he is, on the NEWSHOUR, for example, which I used to watch but no more.-- (I actually kinda enjoyed Mark Shields:&gt ) ) Then I realized it's just another dumb entertainment show...
But, THIS might just be the most moronic thing he has ever said.

I never have figured out if he believes the stuff he says or just is likes the wage level...

[fredamae]

5. Wow-Perhaps if he

had a bit of "Uninhibited Frolic" his attitude and fatigue might be lifted???

[Thinkingabout]

6. David Brooks has paid $300 for one meal, this is what minimum wage earners make in a week.

It is not they don't work or only work part time, this is 40 hours a week. If David Brooks can lay out a budget for minimum wage earners which can provide food, clothing and shelter without getting help from other places then we can talk. David needs a big shot of reality. Minimum wage earners do not make $1300 an hour our Congressional members makes.

[Gothmog]

7. David Brooks is an idiot

I really do not think that he is a good writer and I wonder why anyone cares about his opinions

[Bluenorthwest]

8. David Brooks is an idiot, but this week he has out done himself more than once.

Heard him on the radio yesterday ranting against marijuana law reform while saying he loved smoking it when he was younger. A fool and a prig of the first order.

[Paladin]

9. Fuck David Brooks. He's a joke, by virtue of his own actions. (nt)

[TheKentuckian]

10. New levels of stupid assholery. Yay!

[PowerToThePeople]

11. this guy Brooks just earned a "trash this thread." n/t

[onethatcares]

12. perhaps,

he and Charlie Krautenhammer sit down and smoke a joint or two prior to writing their stuff.

[Jamaal510]

13. I'm tired of

people like David Brooks getting in the way of me having basic necessities.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. Simple solution. End income inequality and it will stop being talked about.

[Cha]

15. The teabaggers' "rich" a$$hole donors are

to blame.. you know the ones.. pulling the damn strings.