Sep
9
2006

URLs du Jour

2006-09-09

  • Gosh, UNH professors seem to be making news lately. Raven is not impressed with the latest one.

  • But Raven, bless her, also points out one of the funniest online videos I've seen recently. (Apparently there's still one person in France with a sense of humor. Who knew?)

  • And Will Wilkinson continues to make more sense than a bushel of economists on the issue of inequality.
    I think part of the problem is that nominal inequality is confused with material inequality.differences in material living conditions. But while nominal inequality is increasing, material inequality continues to decrease. As market competition pushes prices down,  goods at the bottom of the price range more and more closely approximate goods at the top of the price range. (Which is why efficiency and equality are complements.) Food is probably the most striking example of material equalization. If you compare the diets of the top and bottom quintiles 100 years ago with the diets of the top and bottom quintiles now, you.ll see that we have become immensely more equal, not less. My favorite pair of jeans, which I bought at Wal-Mart for $16, is a close substitute for jeans that cost 5 times more.
    But that's only one good point among many; read the whole thing. Really.


Last Modified 2006-09-09 7:16 PM EDT