Capitalism Rules, Socialism and Communism Suck Thread

[Poopadoop]

So you're just gonna stand by your fact-less, information-less, data-less moans?

No, that's what YOUR doing.

First, you haven't provided any data yourself that disputes the GG chart.

Second, you haven't actually demonstrated an understanding of what the chart says, which basically means your position can be summed up as 'I don't agree with what it shows therefore somehow it's wrong, and here's some nonsense arguments based on my misunderstanding of the chart.'

[BananaStand]

No, that's what YOUR doing.

False

First, you haven't provided any data yourself that disputes the GG chart.

So? I'm not trying to dispute the GG chart. I'm disputing the gigantic logical leaps you're taking to explain what it means.

Second, you haven't actually demonstrated an understanding of what the chart says

No, I haven't inferred anything more than what the chart says. Not the same thing.

which basically means your position can be summed up as 'I don't agree with what it shows therefore somehow it's wrong, and here's some nonsense arguments based on my misunderstanding of the chart.'

I've posed some very clear questions challenging the conclusions that YOU are drawing from the chart. Rather than answer them, your only response has been "Well...uhhh....you must not know what the chart means". Which means that your position can be summed up as "This chart is flimsy but it's the only evidence I have to support my argument, so I'll just treat it like scripture and ridicule anyone who challenges it"

[Poopadoop]

No, I haven't inferred anything more than what the chart says. Not the same thing.
"

Well since you asked the question of why the chart doesn't show how many people go up and how many go down, the only logical conclusion is that you don't understand it.

[BananaStand]

Well since you asked the question of why the chart doesn't show how many people go up and how many go down, the only logical conclusion is that you don't understand it.

that is NOT what I asked.

You yourself said that "one person can go up 3 quintiles, and 3 people can go down 1 quintile". right??

So my totally valid, cogent, and compelling question here is.....how likely are people to move up or down? In your hypothetical example, you say that people are 3x more likely to move down. It would be really interesting to know the real numbers on that, and the Gatsby chart doesn't show that information.

[Poopadoop]

that is NOT what I asked.

You yourself said that "one person can go up 3 quintiles, and 3 people can go down 1 quintile". right??

So my totally valid, cogent, and compelling question here is.....how likely are people to move up or down? In your hypothetical example, you say that people are 3x more likely to move down. It would be really interesting to know the real numbers on that, and the Gatsby chart doesn't show that information.

It's irrelevant to any overall conclusion based on the graph because the overall net upwards/downwards movement has to balance out.

If, say, all cases of upward mobility in country A were due to people going up one rung, and all cases of downward mobility were due to people going down two rungs, then twice as many people are going up as going down, but they're only going up 1 notch each while the half as many people who are going down are going down 2 notches each.

The only way such a situation would change the overall numbers is if income mobility in one country tended to involve larger leaps up or down, but that would make the index of mobility greater, not smaller, which it should.

So, e.g., the rags to riches story of someone going from Q5 to Q1 involves a change of four quintiles, which would have to be balanced by some combination of people going down by four quintiles; generally this would involve multiple people (although it could involve a single person going from Q1 to Q5, it doesn't require it). Conversely, a one-quintile change upward can only be balanced out by a one-quintile change downwards, which limits the number of people needed to balance the equation to 1.

So, the mobility index to some extent measures both the number of people who are mobile and the extent to which they are mobile. But these effects are additive and both contribute to the index, which they should. Parsing out the number and the extent values might be interesting, but it shouldn't change the overall shape of the graphs by much if anything. The basic moral is that no, the US doesn't suck on that graph because the index is penalising countries with large numbers of rags-to-riches stories. In fact, it's doing the opposite.

[Poopadoop]

I've posed some very clear questions

They might be clear to you, but they're not clear to anyone who actually understands the chart. You obviously don't understand it, which is what makes your questions a reflection of a misinterpretation of the data and therefore nonsensical.

[BananaStand]

They might be clear to you, but they're not clear to anyone who actually understands the chart. You obviously don't understand it, which is what makes your questions a reflection of a misinterpretation of the data and therefore nonsensical.

The questions are clear to me because the chart obviously does not reflect known facts.

For example, a known fact is that income mobility in the united states hasn't changed over the decades, even though the rungs got farther apart (income inequality increased). See the Harvard/Berkely study

That suggests a NON-correlation between income inequality and income mobility.

[Poopadoop]

The questions are clear to me because the chart obviously does not reflect known facts.

You're saying the data are fake?

For example, a known fact is that income mobility in the united states hasn't changed over the decades, even though the rungs got farther apart (income inequality increased).

And...?

See the Harvard/Berkely study

Actually I prefer to examine studies that are in front of me, not ones reported to me by Fox News. For some strange reason I don't trust their integrity as a source of information.

That suggests a NON-correlation between income inequality and income mobility.

Assuming all you said above was true, it has absolutely no bearing on this conclusion whatsoever. I can't even begin to figure out how to get you to understand this, but it doesn't matter because you won't listen anyways. I'm guessing that little tutorial I gave you on how quintiles work vis-a-vis income mobility went right past you.