The 1% Myth and the Victimization of America

The American Thinker ^ | June 09, 2009 | Andrew Foy and Brenton Stransky

[Scanian]

A common liberal argument aimed at America's free market economy and reinforced in President Obama's budget proposal A New Era of Responsibility is that, over the last 25 years, the rich have gotten richer while the poor have gotten poorer. While this assertion should be of concern to anyone interested in domestic and economic policy, a critical examination of the data reveals the claim to be almost certainly spurious and uncovers an even more interesting question -- what is the motivation for the current administration to propagate such a claim?

The following chart, produced by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, and displayed in the President's budget proposal, demonstrates that over the last 25 years, the share of income going to the top 1% has consistently increased and therefore, one must conclude the share going to everybody else has gotten smaller.

[NTHockey]

Question: Which is more effective - “rich get richer, poor get poorer” or a bunch of charts?

When Conservatives understand the answer and change tactics, then maybe we can get back on the right track.

[Principled]

I think this was a very informative and useful article - providing the data and research analysis to counter the most frequent lies.

i bookmarked it.

thanks for posting.

[Thebaddog]

The real question i have is that Goldman Sachs might have been behind the run up in oil speculation last summer and is predicting higher oil again this year. Who is Goldman Sachs? They are part of the 1%, but somehow, it works for them.

[2ndClassCitizen]

I copy a lot of the articles into MS Word.

I have actually backed up libs on several occasions and converted several people. The libs, actually they are anti-capitalists, usually trade exclusively in lies. They are much like police interrogators. Their goal is to get you to disavow something that is dear to you. Then they attack from another angle.

If you do not have a great memory, tell them that they are being lied to and that what they tell you is usually false or spun so bad as to be meaningless.

[RoadTest]

I think your point is that the Democrats have taken over our government by using clever slogans and pushing our hot buttons? And that we’re not going to convince many people with reason, logic and facts?

[NTHockey]

>>I think your point is that the Democrats have taken over our government by using clever slogans and pushing our hot buttons? And that we’re not going to convince many people with reason, logic and facts?<<

Actually, my point is that the average voter has the attention span of a flash bulb and the political savvy of a gnat. Sound bites will win over reason, logic and facts everytime, in that environment.

Besides, the arguement that “my set of data is better than your set of data” is a loser from the get-go. My message would be “that’s a lie and I can prove it”. NOW, you have got everybody’s attention!

[RoadTest]

I can’t find anything wrong in that post.