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Does government spending end poverty?
Some of the reviewers of Myths point out that the authors do not account for the role of government welfare programs in reducing poverty. Actually poverty in the U.S. declined steadily during the past century UNTIL Johnson's "war on poverty" started. Poverty for the elderly has declined somewhat since then at least partly due to social security (at what cost?) and poverty for those under 18 has increased.
Between 1965 and 1994 poverty programs cost taxpayers $5.4 trillion. It has been calculated that with $5.4 trillion you could purchase every U.S. factory, all manufacturing equipment, and every office building. With what's left over, one could buy every airline, trucking company and our commercial maritime fleet. If you're still in the shopping mood, you could also buy every television, radio and power company, plus every retail and wholesale store in the entire nation.
And the welfare bill has now risen past 7.9 trillion. One might question the cost of welfare programs versus the benefits.
attacks the myths
We all hear about how the Japanese make better cars, we cannot compete in the steel industry, Indian engineers work for less, our graduate schools are filled with Asians, etc. People use these as evidence that the U.S. is no longer competitive and that we are losing our position as the most powerful economic leader in the world. This is pure nonsense.
The two authors go through a detailed explanation of why the U.S. is better off now than it ever has been. Some of the critics of this book say that we are doing so well now because of government programs. Well how do these people explain the success of the U.S. before FDR and Johnson. The Great Depression is also proof that the government shouldn't meddle with a capitalist society.
This book should be read by anyone who hears the media's and polticians'spin on the welfare of the U.S. The U.S. is still the most powerful economic giant in the world and the facts are there to back it up. Some people can spin some stats to show that we are not doing as well as we think, but it is just spin and I truly believe that these people just want the U.S. to be less powerful because they dislike the success of our country.
this book holds up over time
Michael Cox, of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank and Richard Alm, a journalist by way of the university of Kansas, wrote this book five years ago prior to the 2000 presidential election. It addressed the same issues that we're dealing with today in 2004: how well off is the electorate and the definition of "real income"; the issues of downsizing or job exportation, an offshoot of the economic condition called creative destruction; the trade deficit as a sign of national economic strength or weakness; and how income mobility between the earning quintiles is alive and well in America i.e those who start poor don't remain poor, they can move up quickly. In fact, no one "oppresses them", the caveat of Marxist class warfare ideology. Isn't it amazing that students are still being taught the efficacy of Marxism in our universities by professors who act as hand-maidens for the Denmocratic Party (which has fallen off the proverbial cliff to the Left)?You might suppose that the leaders of the Democratic Party, the one's who talk about the "two America's" and the wealth division that separates them might avail themselves of the realities extant in the country today, but no, they'll probably go down to defeat by a far larger margin than the current polling indicates due to their hard headed need to fight yesterdays wars. In fact, the workers of the world never did unite so the political Left has had to export a whole new working class of illegal immigrants to serve their mythology and win elections. Keeping that in mind, this book addresses the continuing progress of these very immigrants. For starters (in 1997) the richest 1% of earners earned 17% of the income, but paid 35% of the taxes. Today they pay closer to 40%. By contrast, the bottom 50% of earners earned 14% of the income, but paid only 4% of the income taxes. To flesh this out, the top 25% of wage earners paid 82% of income taxes while earning far less of a percentage of the income. You'll also learn here that the percentage of Americans owning any household appliance you can name has increased markedly in the past 30 years. That passage of time has also yielded an additional benefit by requiring fewer hours of labor with regard to providing sufficient income for those purchases. The book shows how America, with its rule of law protecting personal property rights, is the most successful economy in world history (and it's pulling away from the rest.) It highlights how we're immeasurabley better off than our forefathers - for easy reference, see Julian Simon and Stephen Moore's book "It's getting better all the time: 100 trends over the last 100 years." There you can see that longevity increases yearly which is a a pretty good ongoing indicator of the direction of our quality of life. When Virginia Postrel of Reason magazine says that "no honest debate can ignore this book", she hits the nail on the head because the neo-communist left-wing in America doesn't want an honest debate. While facts don't win arguments a democracy via a constitutional republic, as imperfect as it is, is still the best political system available on the planet. Read "Myth's of the Rich and Poor" to find out why. This is a terrific book for getting your head on straight when it comes to the realities by which all of us live. Buy a copy for your children and discuss it with them; they won't learn about it in school.
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