Free Republic

[I]t is now the rich who are the most stressed out and the most likely to be working the most. Perhaps for the first time since we’ve kept track of such things, higher-income folks work more hours than lower-wage earners do. Since 1980, the number of men in the bottom fifth of the income ladder who work long hours (over 49 hours per week) has dropped by half, according to a study by the economists Peter Kuhn and Fernando Lozano. But among the top fifth of earners, long weeks have increased by 80 percent. This is a stunning moment in...

When Majid Ezzati thinks about declining life expectancy, he says, “I think of an epidemic like HIV, or I think of the collapse of a social system, like in the former Soviet Union.” But such a decline is happening right now in some parts of the United States. Between 1983 and 1999, men’s life expectancy decreased in more than 50 U.S. counties, according to a recent study by Ezzati, associate professor of international health at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), and colleagues. For women, the news was even worse: life expectancy decreased in more than 900 counties—more than...

To justify economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance. In that way, one's social class attainment, whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and justified. If your beliefs don't justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings. "Our research suggests that inequality takes...

<p>“Freedom of education, being an essential of civil and religious liberty . . . must not be interfered with under any pretext whatever," the party's national platform declared. “We are opposed to state interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children as an infringement of the fundamental . . . doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government."</p>

"Ladies' Night" was a hit single for the band Kool and the Gang in the '80s, but now it's become the subject of a lawsuit. New York attorney Roy Den Hollander has filed a class action lawsuit against several Manhattan bars and clubs, alleging that their ladies' night practices are unconstitutional. Hollander charges that when they host ladies' night they are violating the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law. Hollander is seeking to be named class representative for all men charged more money or burdened by stricter time restraints than woman. He seeks nominal damages and an...

Bill Cosby's popularity in the African American community hasn't been the same since he started speaking his mind about it. He has told parents to start parenting. Told the community it was complicit in the misogyny, vulgarity, violence and racism in black culture.

The national obsession with celebrity collided head-on with the more serious issue of the equal application of justice on Friday, as a judge sent the socialite Paris Hilton back to jail some 36 hours after she was released for an unspecified medical problem. Judge Michael T. Sauer ordered Ms. Hilton to serve the rest of her sentence in a county lockup after the city attorney, whose office had prosecuted her, filed a petition asking that the sheriff’s department be held in contempt or explain why it had released her with an ankle monitor on Thursday, after she had served just...

Is inequality rising in the US? Alan Reynolds thinks it isn't, at least not very much, and Paul Krugman thinks it is, a lot. That last point would normally have me insisting that inequality is decreasing given my views of Professor K's political rhetoric but I'm not quite sure that even I could pull off such an argument. If we try and get to an answer, a clear and unambiguous one, on this point we find ourselves in a morass of detail. Should we be looking at incomes? Very well, should they be pre- or post-tax ones? Should we include...

Four months after Hurricane Katrina, analyses of data suggest that some widely reported assumptions about the storm's victims were incorrect. For example, a comparison of locations where 874 bodies were recovered with U.S. census tract data indicates that the victims weren't disproportionately poor. Another database of 486 Katrina victims from Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, compiled by Knight Ridder, suggests they also weren't disproportionately African American. Both sets of data are incomplete; Louisiana state officials have released no comprehensive list of the dead. Still, they provide the most comprehensive information available to date about who paid the ultimate price in...

Poker justice -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Walter Williams -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Democrats plan to trumpet the income and wealth gap for political gain in this year's elections. According to The Wall Street Journal article "Democrats' Risky Strategy," Democratic candidates blame Republicans for economic inequality. This strategy might sell because, in addition to envy, many people erroneously use income inequality as a measure of fairness. Income is a result. As such, results cannot establish whether there is fairness or justice. Let's look at it. Suppose Tom, Dick and Harry play a weekly game of poker. Tom wins 75 percent of the time. Dick and Harry,...

<p>WASHINGTON -- If you're in Asheville, N.C., stop by the Biltmore, the vast estate that George Vanderbilt III -- heir to a railroad fortune -- constructed between 1889 and 1895. You can tour most of its 250 rooms, including 43 bathrooms and an indoor swimming pool. When few Americans used electricity, the Biltmore had its own generators. To take the tour is to grasp one of the great advances of the 20th century: The gap between the superrich and most Americans has narrowed enormously. In Vanderbilt's time, most Americans lived in filthy slums or on modest farms. Now even the wealthiest among us live more like ordinary people than Vanderbilt ever did.</p>

It’s easy for scholars to study statistics, and then provide solutions to change those numbers. Scholars perform massive amounts of research, but the field reporting is left to journalists. Recently, The Brookings Institution sponsored a panel to discuss policies that would aid in educating low-income children. After the panel had completed, four journalists took the stage to provide analysis on the presented ideas. The journalistic panel consisted of Adrian Wooldridge, of The Economist, Hugh Price, Senior Fellow of The Brookings Institution, Sebastian Mallaby, of The Washington Post, and David Wessel, of The Wall Street Journal; all four of whom have...

by Mark Finkelstein September 8, 2006 - 08:53 Paul Krugman is right about one thing, "We are, finally, having a national discussion about inequality." This thanks to liberals such as himself who have dragged the issue front and center, using as their springboard statistics suggesting wages aren't rising as fast as profits or productivity. At the end of his subscription-required column of today, Whining Over Discontent, Krugman indulges in a bit of 'bring it on bravado', claiming that "[we liberals have] got the arguments, and the facts, to win this debate." But just which debate is he talking about? Let's...

One of the joys of my working life is that I get to read papers like "The State of Working America" from the Economic Policy Institute. They are, as you may know, the people who urge that the USA become more like the European countries, most especially the Scandinavian ones. Less income inequality, more leisure time, stronger unions and so on. All good stuff from a particular type of liberal and progressive mindset -- i.e. that society must be managed to produce the outcome that technocrats believe society really desires, rather than an outcome the actual members of society prove...

The wide gap between the richest and poorest

"Those who hate evil hated the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, after all, was a made-up country, created by a band of gangsters called Bolsheviks and Communists. They murdered between 20 million and 40 million innocent people, spread their totalitarianism around the world, and thereby rendered hundreds of millions of people slaves and automatons. From the 1930s to the 1950s, liberals and social democrats vigorously opposed communism. But the rest of the world's Left, especially its intellectuals and artists, not only did not oppose communist governments, they were the greatest defenders of communism."

Priming the Pump of Envy June 10, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- by Lee Duigon -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As the New York Times, the labor unions, and the MoveOn.org crowd just keep on and on lamenting "the unequal distribution of wealth" in the Bad Old U.S.A., it might be useful to take a look at the only state in history that made a serious, sincere effort to equalize wealth among its citizens. That state was Sparta, ancient Sparta. Starting at around 600 B.C., the Spartans tried to re-engineer their society so that all Spartans would be equal. Credit for this idea usually goes to the...

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Productive inequalityBy Walter E. WilliamsPublished September 22, 2004 Shaquille O'Neal ($32 million), Tiger Woods ($80 million), Oprah Winfrey ($210 million), Barry Bonds ($23 million), Mel Gibson ($210 million) and Lance Armstrong ($19 million) are at the top of their professions, and their annual earnings show it. But is it fair?     After all, there are many other decent, hard-working basketball and baseball players, movie producers and bicyclists who don't earn anywhere near that kind of income. For example, Shaq is a professional basketball player, and so is Jamal Sampson. What's just about Shaq being paid $31 million and...

South Korea: Drifting Economy, Boiling Society Andy Xie (Hong Kong) at Morgan Stanley Korean society appears to be focusing on democratization and empowering people, demystifying government power, as well as decreasing the scope and social tolerance of corruption. Because of this, economic liberalization may take a backseat. Indeed, Korean society appears to be focusing on reducing the income inequality that economic liberalization may exacerbate. Korea’s economic establishment is deeply bearish about the present state of affairs, fearing that the lack of direction will depress the economy in the short term and may damage Korea’s longer-term economic competitiveness. The economic establishment...

This obesity debate is full of humbug and denial. Fat is a class issue, but few like to admit that most of the seriously obese are poor. This is not about the nanny state telling Boris Johnson to keep off the claret in his club. It's about people like us telling people down there in the underclass to eat up their greens. Health professionals say "we" must take more exercise and stop eating fast food, but mostly they really mean "them". It's an old story - trace it back to the poor laws. The middle classes like to worry about...

Start with Hollywood -- say, the producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen or Peter and Bobby Farrelly, or the actors Ben and Casey Affleck. Move on to the gossip columns, where Paris and Nicky Hilton and Janet and Michael Jackson are recurring fixations. And then consider politics, a field whose most prominent names include George W. and Jeb Bush; John, Robert and Edward Kennedy; and Jerry and Kathleen Brown. America, a quick survey of some of its most famous citizens suggests, is awash in successful siblings. Most people would hardly find that surprising. Success, it...

"Islam is a religion of peace". This is what our politically correct politicians keep telling us. But what is politically correct is not necessarily correct. The truth is that Islam is not a religion of peace. It is a religion of hate, of terror and of war. A thorough study of the Quran and Hadith reveal an Islam that is not being presented honestly by the Muslim propagandists and is not known to the majority of Muslims. Islam as it is taught in the Quran (Koran) and lived by Muhammad, as is reported in the Hadith (Biography and sayings of...

GOING TOO FAR by Timothy Rollins, Editor and Publisher September 22, 2003 For some, it's love of the game. For others, it's an opportunity to get away for two or three hours to watch athletes at the top of their game doing what they do best. For players, it's a dream come true, getting paid to do what they did in the playground as a kid. For fans, it's a chance to relive their childhood as they take their children or just some friends to whatever game they're watching.However, in the last couple of years, I've had to ask myself...