The Poorest 20% of Americans Are Richer on Average Than Most Nations of Europe

““A groundbreaking study by Just Facts has discovered that after accounting for all income, charity, and non-cash welfare benefits like subsidized housing and Food Stamps—the poorest 20% of Americans consume more goods and services than the national averages for all people in most affluent countries. This includes the majority of countries in the prestigious Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including its European members. In other words, if the U.S. “poor” were a nation, it would be one of the world’s richest.

Notably, this study was reviewed by Dr. Henrique Schneider, professor of economics at Nordakademie University in Germany and the chief economist of the Swiss Federation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. After examining the source data and Just Facts’ methodology, he concluded: “This study is sound and conforms with academic standards. I personally think it provides valuable insight into poverty measures and adds considerably to this field of research.”””
     — James D. Agresti

Tags: guest content ∙ clipping ∙ James D. Agresti ∙ poor ∙ wealth ∙ wealth inequality ∙ America

❝❝It's not that capitalism produces no losers, it's that the free market produces fewer losers by a couple of orders of magnitude.

Notice that I am distinguishing between capitalism and the free market.

Again, I'm talking about a "bottom-up" self-organizing exchange versus a "top-down" system imposed by force. In a free market, the way to get ahead is providing what others want. In any other system, it's about controlling the system.

ANY artificial controls will be exploited by the most powerful at the expense of the weaker. Resources are diverted into controlling the rules rather than producing value.

"Moral obligations" will be used to shut competition out of the marketplace in the name of compassion, and it will be backed by government force, diverting still more resources away from the market and into government and control.

The free market has only one real justification, it has produced more wealth and more freedom for more people than anything else we have tried. The key is individual choice, not controlling the system.

In a free market, competition keeps us honest and choice is the only control that works.

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The two most important phrases in human history:

“Let me help.”

“I can do better than that!”

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It's not the tools, it's the results.

The free market is an example of people choosing for themselves. Government is controlling people by force.

And yes, the world is changing. It's embracing choice. That doesn't mean that the politicos and technocrats will give up power willingly. But they can't control everything that happens. Who could have foreseen the world wide web, Snicker's bars, or topless maid services? What government agency would have tolerated those things? What Congress critter would have sponsored legislation creating flash mobs, radar detectors, or fantasy football?

I want more freedom for more people today. I want more of the same tomorrow. Choice is the best way to get freedom. That's it, plain and simple. That's my objective.

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See, you're still talking politics. "Arrange." "Cap." That's about controlling others, implying that government force will be involved sooner or later.

Why should their choice control my action? Why should my choice control your action? Why should your choice control their action?

It's not about creating the framework or tweaking the system. They've got something I want, so I have to find something they want. Voluntary exchanges between consenting adults, and no third party taking a cut or dictating rules.

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Freedom and wealth. The Apaches could not produce steel knives, antiseptics, or a horseshoe. In one sense they were free, but they didn't have wealth. What freedom and wealth they had was taken at the expense of others.

Freedom taken at the expense of someone else is privilege and is generally recognized as a Bad Thing. Perhaps the keystone to Western Civilization is the Ethic of Reciprocity. This is what makes freedom more than a privilege grab. It also can't be imposed by another.

I'm proposing that the free market makes freedom and wealth possible while making things mostly better today than they were yesterday. So we have steel tools, paracord, duck tape, battery drills, and lights at the flick of a switch. These and seven million and thirteen other things weren't even a possibility with a hunter/gatherer culture.

Freedom is only one part of the payoff.

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Nice things result in greater freedom.

I grow stuff in my garden, but that is not my source of food. I can go to the grocery store and find a wider variety of fruits and vegetables than I could ever hope to grow myself. My choices are increased by the store, and it couldn't happen without the free market.

A few years back I was looking at an aquaponics set-up. Beyond the design and construction, it would have taken about twenty hours a week and between two and three hundred dollars more per month. And that is if everything went right and I never left town.

Is it necessary that I use the supermarket? No, but it's a better use of my time and resources than if I tried to do it on my own. It lets me use the labor and skills of others at a minimal cost to myself.❞❞

Tags: losers ∙ capitalism ∙ bottom up ∙ self-organizing ∙ exchange ∙ top down ∙ force ∙ system ∙ resources ∙ moral obligations ∙ competition ∙ compassion ∙ wealth ∙ let me help ∙ I can do better than that

““Capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering, and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.””

— Walter E. Williams

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❝❝And yet scapegoating is alive and well.

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Pardon, but for all the talk about what Trump and his supporters did against "minorities," there was much more done against Trump's supporters.

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I am not conservative. I am also not a liberal.

I am a writer.

I'm the guy who wrote “We need solutions that don't exile people politically.”

And “When it comes to religion becoming the law of the land, the devout don't need it, the non-believers don't want it, and the politicos will corrupt it.”

And I wrote this:

You are not entitled

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I didn't say anyone here now shamed me, I said I wrote that.

I don't know what you did or did not do as an editor, I have only your say so for that. Until I have reason to disbelieve, I'll take your word for it. What I do know is that you were lecturing about the failures of "Whites" above. I am not defending anyone. No one group and certainly no "race" is without scoundrels, and no group is composed of saints.

As it happens, I believe in many American ideals and I think on the whole we get more right than we get wrong. I don't need to defend those ideas, they speak for themselves. I will say that not all ideas labeled "American" have much to do with liberty.

I started on this thread by writing about scapegoating. From what I see, this article does that.

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"Control of the system" IS the problem. Fighting for "control of the system" is also the problem. The only known practical solution is to make government smaller than absolutely necessary.

Zinn's book is seriously flawed and way overhyped.

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I'm not complaining about skin color. I'm complaining about being blamed for things that happened to people long dead long before I was born because of skin color. And I am complaining about the "sins" of one skin color used to explain All That Is Truly Wrong In The World.

I've said it before and I will stand by it. There's only one "race" and it's human.

I've got something I call the Practical Grudge Limit. It’s not practical to hold someone responsible unless they were there, of age, and participating. I'm responsible for what I've done and what I've said. No more, no less.

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“…we have to create a system that is not about trying to control things and keep the controlling the hands of the wealthy and powerful.”

You can't have a system that is about not controlling and controlling. You want to make the distinction between the rich and the poor, but in the past it's been skin color, gender, religion, and ancestry.

Any system that sets up an inequality will always be exploited. And I am not talking about the inequality between rich and poor. You spoke of payback before. Any exploitive system will be about control and payback.

Unless it's inherited, one acquires wealth by exploiting people OR providing value to one's neighbors. There are other ways, but they are minute examples. If someone earned wealth by providing value to neighbors, that means they are doing something right. Especially if happens over time. You don't want to use a plumber who cheats you, or a grocer who sells spoiled food, or a bank that charges negative interest on your accounts.

That's when wealth can reflect character and commitment and honor.

If someone is in business, if they provide what was promised at a fair price, if they pay for their purchases as expected, if they treat people well, all of that makes a pretty decent measure of character.

That's what the Founders were interested in. Not a government of the rich for the rich, but a society of people with proven character.

Let's take a modern example. Before the law was changed, you could only finance a house by coming up with a down payment, usually ten percent of the price. This wasn't done to keep the poor unhoused. It was because you wanted people buying houses if they could afford it and were willing to work for it. The down payment also represented character and commitment.

When the law was changed for "compassionate" reasons, people could buy a house without "skin in the game." If someone couldn't pay their mortgage, the bank would take it back without any risk to the buyer. Since the mortgage payments were usually less than rent, there was no incentive to keep the house if that someone couldn't pay.

Meanwhile, banks and loan companies couldn't profit. People didn't put in down payments and walked away. Housing prices skyrocketed even as there was a glut of housing. So their solution (made with government encouragement) was to split the loans into what was paid and what was owed. Whoever got stuck with what was owed without any income lost big time. But banks got "too big to fail."

So a change in law to benefit the poor actually made things worse for nearly everyone. All because the rule of law was no longer uniform. It could be exploited. And it was.

It wasn't because of the divide between rich and poor. It was because politicos saw something they could tell voters was a Major Problem. It was because the changed law no longer rewarded character and hard work.

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I have to point out that many of the people screaming about race relations are profiting either in terms of money or power. Not all and not most, but a significant number are making noise because they benefit from the problem and can't allow it to be solved.

I really don't want to start another long involved conversation about guns. I will say that libertarians call gun control victim disarmament and leave it at that.

Did you know that many housing projects were a direct result of Great Society programs? Those same programs encouraged the destruction of existing buildings (with low crime rates) so the projects could be built. Most of these projects were dilapidated and crime ridden within a decade or so. Some were rebuilt two or three times with the same results. I have to wonder how many of those problems were caused by the projects and the public housing policies that made them possible. Differences and problems may have been made worse by government action.

It wasn't skin color that gave the ghettos their reputation. It was crime. And the crimes may have had roots in government compassion.❞❞

Tags: scapegoating ∙ racism ∙ Trump supporters ∙ conservative ∙ liberal ∙ writer ∙ law of the land ∙ shaming ∙ entitled ∙ lecturing ∙ American ideals ∙ control of the system ∙ skin color ∙ Practical Grudge Limit ∙ wealth ∙ Character ∙ honor ∙ honoring promises ∙ Founders ∙ 2008 crash

I suspect that sexual orientation is not as hard wiblurb as some believe, but that is still individual choice.

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