| Thomas Sowell is a Douche
I'm not sure of Thomas Sowell believes this, or if he chronically suffers from being hit in the face with a shovel. This is a classic example of what it means to "blatently misrepresent statistics." For example: When it comes to full-time year-around workers, there are more heads of households who fall into that category in the top 5 percent of income earners than in the bottom 20 percent -- in absolute numbers.Of course, he fails to note that the bottom 20% of income earners includes students who work part time, the structurally unemployed, single mothers, migrant workers, and the "idle rich" he says are no longer a valid concern. See, the funny thing is, when you live off your savings, you fall into the lowest 20% in terms of income. You could go so far as to say that the bottom 20% is almost fully people who are not working solely as a means to get by. According to the 2002 census, the upper limit for the lowest fifth of income earners is $17,916 pretax dollars. A majority of those in said grouping don't work full time, not becuase they're lazy, but becuase they just don't happen to be doing it for a living. In fact, he basically says as much later in his little diatribe: But studies that follow the same individuals over time find that most of those in the bottom 20 percent of income earners are also in the top 20 percent at some other time in their careers.Now, if this is actually true (and, no offense to fuckface, but I doubt it), then it would tend to suggest that a large portion of those who are in the lowest 20% are things like retirees, who previously happened to be making a lot of money. Again, the "idle rich". He claims that everyone who works eventually ends up in the top income brackets. This is just a lie. To really believe what he's saying is true, you'd honestly have to think that a non-college educated individual with only manual labor experience can somehow boost themself up into being an investment banker or something, yet doesn't want to. The simple fact is that, more than any other factor, the income bracket a person is born into is the best indication of where they will end up. cranked out at 10:32 PM | |
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