Kansas: Nirvana or Nuts

The Don said:
It's not a case of belief, studies show it both inter and intra-generationally that the US has low mobility
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I explained why the studies I've seen are flawed. If you can point me to one in particular, I'd be happy to take a look at it and see if it controls for demographic factors.
 
rwguinn said:
Since Kansas has a large portion of its economy based in aviation, especially GA, and given the current US administration and Congressional hatred of and ongoing attempts to kill all aviation in the United States, it is no surprise that Kansas has gone to the weird side...
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Can you elaborate on this? I'm learning to be a pilot myself, and I hadn't heard any of this before.
 
sunmaster14 said:
Can you elaborate on this? I'm learning to be a pilot myself, and I hadn't heard any of this before.
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Take a look at the industry in Wichita since the 2009 cslamity. Congress a and Obama harshly dealt with the use of privste/corporate aircraft by automakers who were summoned to DC. The tried to give the USA tanker deal to a foreign entity, have treated most US aerospace firms like dirt, and we aerospace engineers are discouraged. The only aircraft outside Boeing Commercial are GA airframes being built by Bombardier and Embraer, outside the US. At least some US firms are getting some work on them
 
rwguinn said:
Take a look at the industry in Wichita since the 2009 cslamity. Congress a and Obama harshly dealt with the use of privste/corporate aircraft by automakers who were summoned to DC. The tried to give the USA tanker deal to a foreign entity, have treated most US aerospace firms like dirt, and we aerospace engineers are discouraged. The only aircraft outside Boeing Commercial are GA airframes being built by Bombardier and Embraer, outside the US. At least some US firms are getting some work on them
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Oh, I see. Why the harsh attitude from the administration? Is it a class warfare kind of thing, or is it mostly driven by global warming concerns?
 
sunmaster14 said:
I explained why the studies I've seen are flawed. If you can point me to one in particular, I'd be happy to take a look at it and see if it controls for demographic factors.
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A country which has lower levels of income and wealth inequality and higher levels of social and economic mobility will tend to be more homogeneous.

There are a stack of studies out there. Here is a link to a Pew Study I have referred to in another thread:

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/archived-projects/economic-mobility-project

OECD study

http://www.oecd.org/centrodemexico/medios/44582910.pdf

And here's the wiki page stuffed with cites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the_United_States

Of course the U.S. is always different and special and so things that work in other countries won't work in the U.S.
 
MG1962 said:
I'd suggest it has more to do with the disconnect between the people who were voted in and those who put them there.

Remember the most recent evolution war was ended when 6 of the 8 politicians who championed the creationist view in schools were voted out of office the very next election.
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I'm inclined to believe that was because of the money they had cost to defend the case.
 
rwguinn said:
Take a look at the industry in Wichita since the 2009 cslamity. Congress a and Obama harshly dealt with the use of privste/corporate aircraft by automakers who were summoned to DC. The tried to give the USA tanker deal to a foreign entity, have treated most US aerospace firms like dirt, and we aerospace engineers are discouraged. The only aircraft outside Boeing Commercial are GA airframes being built by Bombardier and Embraer, outside the US. At least some US firms are getting some work on them
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That's quite a skewed view, particularly of the tanker deal. The way it is reported over here is that the U.S. government put it out to tender and a consortium of Northrop and EADS put together the better offer. Boeing then threw its toys out of the pram.

Now if you're happy with a grossly inflated Boeing boondoggle then that's fine but then don't complain about high taxes or complain about Obama's spending.

BTW as I understand it, it was under Bush's watch that the contract was awarded but then after the "takesies backsies" the administration didn't have time to review the bids before Obama took over.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7608930.stm
 
The Don said:
A country which has lower levels of income and wealth inequality and higher levels of social and economic mobility will tend to be more homogeneous.
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Of course, but the causality runs the other way. A more homogeneous population (e.g. Norway, Finland, or Japan) will tend to have lower levels of inequality. I only had time to look at the OECD study, but as I suspected it doesn't address demographics at all.

<snip>

Of course the U.S. is always different and special and so things that work in other countries won't work in the U.S.
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Regardless of the snark, the US is quite a bit different from most developed countries in that it is far more ethnically and racially diverse. Alot of the "problems" with inequality are really problems of inequality between demographic groups. On things like income, wealth, education and test scores, there is not a single normal distribution but rather a bi-modal distribution. While the expansion of social welfare programs might tend to narrow both humps, they don't seem to be closing the gap between the two humps. They may even be increasing the gap.
 
Gawdzilla said:
I'm inclined to believe that was because of the money they had cost to defend the case.
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That was certainly an element. Kansans are a surprisingly pragmatic group of people when it comes down to it. The thought of spending money to fix something that until a political meddled with it was not even broken is going to a source of annoyance.
 
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sunmaster14 said:
Regardless of the snark, the US is quite a bit different from most developed countries in that it is far more ethnically and racially diverse. Alot of the "problems" with inequality are really problems of inequality between demographic groups. On things like income, wealth, education and test scores, there is not a single normal distribution but rather a bi-modal distribution. While the expansion of social welfare programs might tend to narrow both humps, they don't seem to be closing the gap between the two humps. They may even be increasing the gap.
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I'm intrigued, so the problem isn't just that the US doesn't allow social and economic mobility but that it's also horribly riven with racial inequality as well - and this is apparently some kind of mitigating factor.

Successive U.S. governments who have reduced taxes for the rich in order to stimulate growth and social mobility across the board seem not to have succeeded. Social mobility is largely unchanged in the last 30 years and income and wealth inequality has got far, far worse. This model seems not to work.
 
The Don said:
I'm intrigued, so the problem isn't just that the US doesn't allow social and economic mobility but that it's also horribly riven with racial inequality as well - and this is apparently some kind of mitigating factor.
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Well, I don't agree that the US has less social and economic mobility. But, yes, there is significant inequality between demographic groups. Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans lag behind, while East and South Asians are actually pulling ahead of the majority (despite, by the way, most of them being recent immigrants or the children of immigrants who started with nothing). Actually, there are similar or greater disparities in your home country (I'm assuming Wales/UK). For example, Blacks in the UK are doing worse relative to the majority population than they are in the US. And of course in absolute terms they're way worse off, since the average standard of living in the US is so much higher than in the UK. Of course, this inequality doesn't affect broad national statistics terribly much since Blacks represent only 3-4% of the UK population, as compared with 13-14% of the US population.

Successive U.S. governments who have reduced taxes for the rich in order to stimulate growth and social mobility across the board seem not to have succeeded. Social mobility is largely unchanged in the last 30 years and income and wealth inequality has got far, far worse. This model seems not to work.
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That model has left the US with a far better standard of living than exists in the UK, or anywhere else in Europe, save some anomalous tax havens for the wealthy. And before you complain that the uber-rich in the US are distorting the averages, well, the bottom 10% in the US are doing better than in most of Europe (and certainly the UK) too. Which really is what it's all about, right?
 
sunmaster14 said:
That model has left the US with a far better standard of living than exists in the UK, or anywhere else in Europe, save some anomalous tax havens for the wealthy.
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You're going to have to define what you mean by 'standard of living'. What components are you including in it? If it, for example, includes easy and widespread access to good health care, then the U.S. is most certainly not "far better" than the UK or Europe.
 
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sunmaster14 said:
That model has left the US with a far better standard of living than exists in the UK, or anywhere else in Europe, save some anomalous tax havens for the wealthy. And before you complain that the uber-rich in the US are distorting the averages, well, the bottom 10% in the US are doing better than in most of Europe (and certainly the UK) too. Which really is what it's all about, right?
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That's not what your linked article shows, it shows both the top 10% and bottom 10% being marginally better off in the U.S. than in the UK.

Here is some of the data:

http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=BLI

Interestingly where the U.S. outscores the UK include

- Quality of housing
- Size of housing
- Income and wealth
- Educational attainment
- Air quality
- Assault rate

Areas where UK outscores the U.S.

- Employment level
- Employment security
- Life expectancy (U.S. far outscores UK on self-reported health)
- Homicide rate
- Quality of support network
 
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