Re: Not always joking, it seems

On Feb 20, 12:24=A0pm, David Friedman <d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> In article <fphovk$8i...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> =A0Matthias Warkus <War...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > John Schilling schrieb:
> > > On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:20:54 +0100, Matthias Warkus
> > > <War...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > >> Karl M. Syring schrieb:
> > >>> On 16 Feb., 09:16, Matthias Warkus
<War...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> > >>> wrote:
> > >>>> Willie.Moo...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 schrieb:
>
> > >>>>> Today, we do not hear pundits speak of too cheap to meter -
instea=
d we
> > >>>>> hear pundits say this is the first generation of Americans that
wi=
ll
> > >>>>> not live better than their parents.
> > >>>> Note this has been said about the last two generations already.
> > >>>> "Generation X" came out in 1989, after all.
> > >>> I admit, It was true in 1989 so it is the second generation
getting
> > >>> screwed.
> > >> It seems that you can torture the statistics any way you like on
this=

> > >> issue. Conventional wisdom has it that US real wages have been more
o=
r
> > >> less declinining since the 1960s, without ever really picking up in
> > >> between, but the German Federation of Labour Unions, of all things,
> > >> maintains they have gone up 30.6 % between 1980 and 2000.
>
> > >> Has there been a gradient in the US HDI over those last 20 years?
>
> > > That depends on whether the 'D' in "HDI" stands for "disposable"
> > > (i.e. after taxes) or "discretionary" (i.e. after necessities).
>
> > I wasn't aware that HDI was such a versatile TLA ... what I meant to
> > mean was Human Development Index. Sorry.
>
> Interesting--not a measure I was familiar with.
>
> I wonder what the reason was for including income as log income,
> everything else as the value itself. As a way of reflecting declining
> marginal utility of income? Or as a way of lowering the figure for high
> income countries?
>
> So far as your question is concerned ... =A0. I don't have a source for
> the HDI for the U.S. over time. But real income per capita has been
> going up, life expectancy has been going up.

Debt has been going up.....

Amazing what can be hidden if you focus on the asset side and ignore
the liabilities.

But then people who ignore everything not immediately pertinant to
themselves can create all sorts of fantasies about how great the world
is.