Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for August 21, 2011

“The reason the hand is invisible is because it isn’t there.”- Joseph Stiglitz

“EVERY INDIVIDUAL…generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry he INTENDS ONLY HIS OWN SECURITY; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, HE INTENDS ONLY HIS OWN GAIN, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an INVISIBLE HAND to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” .—Adam Smith, Scottish philospher and economist (1723-1790), (emphasis by capitalization added by dtπ)

Redfern is as good at economics as he is at espionage.

We are in for long and argumentative day. No posts about how hot Becca is.

One of my “out there” predictions: .Jeff will submit his manuscript of already-written adventures of Sorkh Razil. Becca will turn it into a graphic novel. It will be a best-seller in that genre. Becca and Jeff will fall in love and marry. Jeff will write more and more graphic novels, most best-sellers, and end up the richest of Trudeau’s characters so far.

I have no idea who Brandi and Yenny are

OK, now I do…

If each family contains 5 members, than according to that each of the wealthiest people have as much wealth as 75,000 other people on the low end of the income scale.

10% of the commenters have as many words in their comments as the other 90% combined, but that doesn’t make their comments better. ;-7

it isn’t fair. land of equality my foot.

Here’s a gem for Trff fans, a legacy of the Turkmen leader he was modeled after – the Neutrality Arch in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Its crowning adornment:

“The three-legged arch was topped by a 12-metre (39 ft) tall gold-plated statue of Niyazov which rotates to always face the sun.”.Here’s a photo of the statue..The current government plans to demolish the arch and build a new monument.

Lucky Ducky has the answer for income inequality. Gotcha.

@ Doughfoot. Excellent post; too bad so few people will understand, or even have the patience to read it.

Irene Harand, HITLER’S LIES: AN ANSWER TO HITLER’S MEIN KAMPF.J-1988. Rs.295. 284 pages. ISBN 978-81-8495-070-0.. First published in Vienna in 1935, HITLER’S LIES by Irene Harand, is a challenge to the arguments, assumptions and actions of the German dictator, Adolf Hitler. The original German language version of the book was called SEIN KAMPF – ANTWORT AN HITLER von Harand (HIS STRUGGLE – THE ANSWER TO HITLER FROM IRENE HARAND). .In this book Harand explodes the myth of racial and national superiority. She deals with lies about the Jews which formed the basis for Hitler’s propaganda, and attacks the persecution of the Jews on the ground that Anti-Semitism debases Christianity. In her own words: The ruthless force of the Nazis has been directed against the Jewish and Catholic minorities. Their main attack, however, has been launched against German Jewry, which has had to bear unspeakable torture and humiliation in the Third Reich. They foster and unleash hatred against the Jews and commit wholesale murder to maintain a power they have wrested from others. It, therefore, lies in the interest of truth to make public answer to the Nazi Bible, MEIN KAMPF (Hitler’s autobiography), and to ascertain whether the main doctrines of this book, upon which the Nazi political state is founded, can bear critical examination before the civilized world..As the first publishers of Mein Kampf in India, Jaico is proud to revive Harand’s work, which was largely forgotten since the 1950’s in both her native Austria and her new homeland America..http://www.timeswellness.com/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=56&contentid=20100408201004081832385……………………………………………………………………………………………..Note:.The book was published in 1935 in Vienna, Austria, Hitler’s home country. World War II did not begin till 1939, four years after Harand’s book appeared in the marketplace. The war ended in Germany in 1945, ten years after the book was published. As the review supra says, the book, HITLER’S LIES, was “largely forgotten” since the 1050s both in Austria and America. Apparently it is undergoing a revival now. —dtπ

It’s Sunday morning so I decided to skip the idiotic ranting of Deep Cover and go directly to the fun and festivity of GTGARY i love someone throwing undocumented stats at me. Thats why I read the NYT and WSJ. It is hillarious to compare the figures and try to find who compiled them. Your use of the word “Family” inplies all wealth is inherited and none of us earn it. So why did Bill Gates have to borrow $5000 to gert started? Don’t have numbers and stats but the majority of the rich built their wealth on brains, ambition, hard work, and mountains of guts to risk the roof over their family’s head to realize their dreams. You keep thinking that Daddy gave it to them. Keep being jealous. Instead of practicing, compain about the first violin and you will play second fiddle forever.Iguess the hourly worker who complains how much the boss makes gets overtime and weekends off. Why that overpaid slavedriver works 100 hour weeks with no guarentee of pay.What a moroon!

You have that bacward. Try to find a refresher course for your accounting degree.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThorstein Veblen: Institutional economics.Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen (July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was an American economist and sociologist, and a leader of the so-called institutional economics movement. Besides his technical work he was a popular and witty critic of capitalism, as shown by his best known book THE THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS (1899)..Veblen is famous in the history of economic thought for combining a Darwinian evolutionary perspective with his new institutionalist approach to economic analysis. He combined sociology with economics in his masterpiece, THE THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS (1899), arguing there was a basic distinction between the PRODUCTIVENESS OF “INDUSTRY,” run by engineers, which manufactures goods, and the PARASITISM of “business,” which exists only to make PROFITS FOR A LEISURE CLASS. The chief activity of the leisure class was “CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION”, and THEIR ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION IS “WASTE”, activity that contributes nothing to productivity. The American economy was therefore made inefficient and corrupt by the businessmen, though he never made that claim explicit. Veblen believed that technological advances were the driving force behind cultural change, but, unlike many contemporaries, he refused to connect change with progress..Although Veblen was sympathetic to state ownership of industry, he had a low opinion of workers and the labor movement and there is disagreement about the extent to which his views are compatible with Marxism 1. As a leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, his sweeping attack on production for profit and his stress on the wasteful role of consumption for status greatly influenced socialist thinkers and engineers seeking a non-Marxist critique of capitalism. Fine (1994) reports that economists at the time complained that his ideas, while brilliantly presented, were crude, gross, fuzzy, and imprecise; others complained he was a wacky eccentric. Scholars continue to debate exactly what he meant in his convoluted, ironic and satiric essays; he made heavy use of examples of primitive societies, but many examples were pure invention.2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorstein_Veblen

Extremely well thought and spoken. Unfortunately, only a precious few will read and comprehend it.

Ah the rich. Los ricos. Got there by stealing from the b**ch which means the rest of us. Bet they are tasty when sliced into a stir fry.

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it…Ronald ReaganThe first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics…Thomas SowellAsk five economists and you’ll get five different answers – six if one went to Harvard…Edgar Fiedler

For thousands of years there was one society that was very great and had almost no government. There were no taxes. The rights of the individuals were the responsibility of the individual. If you did not contribute, you were left to starve. If you were old or sick, your family took care of you.

Then came the white man.

Before you rant and rave about the wealthy, remember that they are responsible for paying the majority of the taxes through the corporations they own. It is a figment of the imagination that the wealthy do not pay taxes.

I want to live in a society where I have the chance to be successful, not in one where I am being mandated by the government to pay for everyone that does not want to support themselves. Socialism does not work, the closer this nation gets to it, the less innovative it gets. That is when other nations will out grow it. When China added aspects of capitalism to its form of government, look how it has taken off.

The U.S.A. is about to become a 2nd rate country due to thinking like yours. At least we have the freedom to disagree!

I wonder when this strip is written/drawn. I know one who does his strip 3 months before it appears. This was on TV 3 days ago.

Be very clear, that is NOT Jeff but Zip’s newest Walden roomate.

Of course we could go with the Republican plan and raise taxes on the poor. Everyone must pay their fair share they say. And of course, minimum wage laws are unconstitutional. So there you have it. The Republican plan. If you’re a gazillionaire, it’s all tax cuts all the time. If you make minimum wage, you get a tax increase and a pay cut. And yet, they have the nerve to say the poor are waging class warfare on the rich! Madness!

Class warfare, espoused by Obama’s socialists, is actually self-destructive. Adam Smith’s capitalism explained that self-interest was actually good for the country when the consequence of the labors of the tradesmen provided bread, candles and other products to the public. Both groups entered into an economic symbiotic relationship.

The USA offers equality of opportunity, not equality of results. There are winners and losers, but, at least, everyone has a chance to compete and succeed. Under the leftist egalitarianism, no one could succeed because the wealth of succeeding would be confiscated by the government and redistributed to the losers.

Yet people like Garry Trudeau insist that “wealth” shouldn’t be in the hands of the few. Competition, in any endeavor, creates winners and losers. Trudeau insists that we should eliminate competition, confiscate wealth and give it to everyone in equal shares. A little critical thinking will reveal the absurdity of Trudeau’s ideas.

The invisible hand is all thumbs—at least in health care delivery!

Excellent comment. I’ve been meaning to write something like that myself!It’s about BALANCE – and all “the trend lines”, as you say, are going away from balance towards one extremity.It can be added that states with extreme income inequality usually, eventually, succumb to revolution, bankruptcy; war. I hope you don’t mind if I ‘borrow’ this!

The greatness of our country was because of our great middle class. That has largely disappeared and the upper and lower class (actually I prefer income groups) have become farther and farther apart.

This is, in part, due to the inheritance tax. Previously, the old “rags to riches to rags in 3 generations” story was common. After the inheritance tax, the 1st generation puts its money into professionally managed trusts invulnerable to wastrel descendants, and just grows.

the Invisible Hand which led our country to declare its Independence from the tyranny of the weak.

This is a great example of what they were in talking about in the book we (actually) used in high school, “how to lie with statistics.”

While the figures in the strip are true, as far as net worth is concerned, it’s only because so much of the country has a zero or below zero net worth. If I owned nothing but the $20 in my wallet (and had no debt,) that would mean I personally “had” more than about 40% of the country combined, because that’s how many Americans owe more than they own.

Likewise, if we want to lie the other way, I could say perfectly truthfully that I personally pay more income taxes than the “bottom” 50% of Americans combined, because that’s how many people pay no taxes, or “get back” more than they pay, for that specific tax.

NEVER believe any argument made with statistics until you understand exactly where the numbers come from, and what they really represent. And if that’s too much for you, then just stay away from statistics.

Jeff’s attitude clearly demonstrates why that particular problem will never get better. We’ll just keep competing with each other for resources like animals in our heartless capitalist system. With money the driving force in our lives, nothing’s ever going to change here.

Doughfoot… That was Superb! Nicely done.

doughfoot, excellent post, but, how DARE your appeal to logic and balance, and well, that horrible “D word”, “Democracy”, as a way of life! Speaking of which, if we were a true democracy, exactly how long would that 400 be out voting that remaining percentage of the population at the polls?

a baker recognizes our current political problem. If you put flour in one bowl, sugar in another, eggs in another, salt in another, baking powder in another, milk in another, and then put all the bowls in the oven to bake— you don’t have a cake. If you blend all the contents, and all the sweet and sour and things that have to blend and mix to “function”- you DO get a cake, or sweet rolls, or at least something edible.

that’s why politics and economics in America today is inedible.

Despite being one of the 150,000,000 “poorest” in the country, I do not begrudge the 400 richest. I am sick of everyone who promotes class warfare.

Well said sir, well said. I only hope others think it through as well.

I don’t know why I bother. You can get a more reasonable discussion with a bag of hammers than with conservatives in 21st Century America.

@ doughfoot -

Brilliant post, as seems to be your habit. As is the case in even that most primal relationship between predator and prey, “Total victory for either side would, in the end, be bad for both.”

In support of your thesis, some biologists (!) at the University of Minnesota have recently released a study that shows mathematically why the rich keep getting richer. http://tinyurl.com/3ugs3tw The implications are astonishing and profound. One of them is why it is arguably fair, necessary and no doubt in everyone’s, including the wealthy’s, best interest to reasonably redistribute and reinvest wealth society wide. It’s not “Tax & Spend,” it’s “Tax & Reinvest.” The best investment the wealthy ever made (for themselves!) in all of human history was in the US middle class and US infrastructure in the mid-20th Century, when marginal tax rates often bordered on confiscatory. These days, however, we can’t imagine embarking on an investment comparable to the Interstate Highway System.

Unfortunately, with some very notable and highly aware exceptions (e. g. Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, et al.), an awful lot of the wealthy and mega-wealthy are quite simply psychopaths, and always have been (think “Chainsaw” Al or Dick Cheney…). They’ll work hard at playing a NEGATIVE sum game as long as they’re still the winner and you and I, just as importantly, are losers. They relish the win/lose contrast and get a lot of psycho-rewards from making losers out of others. Sweet. And a lot of Tea Baggers seem to think they want to grow up to be just like them…

Which leads to a final worrisome thought: half of all Americans are of below average intelligence, and a whole lot more aren’t much smarter than that. It’s something to consider, especially when reflecting on our current political situation…

Let them eat cake!

@Doughfoot I am impressed by your answer. You should go into politics and make a difference.

“the kids of the rich can screw up a dozen times and still coast to the finish line.”

Does that remind anyone of a recent total screw up POTUS?

Doughfoot, thanks for such an insightful post. I agree almost entirely. Please keep hanging in there. I’m greatly concerned for the future of “cry the beloved country” America. We are indeed in serious danger of the imbalance we have somehow drifted into in which the plutocratic ultra-wealthy, exceedingly few are now oppressing the rest of us..One of the hardest myths to explode is the one that these folk-at-the-top have worked their way up — like the admirable Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Too many more are like that great hard-working-her-way-up-from-nothing Paris Hilton..My sincere thanks again,.dtπ

@AlbertNonyMouse — Assuming you’re talking about Bush, yes. Please be talking about Bush…

Bush the Lesser of course and of most recent note. His father was equally advantaged, but made somewhat better use of it. Somewhat.

@ Spaghettius1 – I’ve not read Outliers, but I’m passing familiar with what it’s about. I’m in general agreement with Gladwell’s argument but I find that it’s really a 21st Century update of the Horatio Alger stories wherein it’s “Luck and Pluck,” and mostly luck at that, that allows Ragged Dick to climb the Ladder of Success.

You know, I’ve always been skeptical of government, and I believe it’s probably best kept to a minimum. But in a modern society of over 310 million people, effective government is an absolute necessity. And it’s the only institution that is capable of counterbalancing the interests of the individual citizen against the power of accumulated wealth. Unfortunately, that function has clearly been subverted in recent decades. That’s not good for anyone, including the wealthy. Old Henry Ford was a world-class SOB, but he understood that unless his workers had the wherewithal to afford to buy the cars that he and they were building, there would be no one to buy all those cars they built. As well expressed lately in the NY Times, The Sage of Omaha and several of his friends know this too and are rightly concerned.

I firmly believe there is a socially necessary and proper function for wealth. But as that UM paper (press release, actually) I referenced above makes clear, left unchecked, wealth will naturally continue to accumulate in fewer and fewer hands. That will drain away the economic opportunity, innovation and development that has given us the benefits of the Bill Gates and Warren Buffets of the world, and as the overall economy is impoverished it will lead almost certainly to economic and market collapse. That in turn will lead to dire consequences for all, including almost certain serious social disruption. History bears this out, and as things stand right now, unless things become much more rational and soon, we may be teetering on the edge of an economic Armageddon. I have to say that the future doesn’t look so good.

Thank you fro a very well thought-out and balanced view. I hope there are enough readers who understand it. Too bad more politicians wont see it.

@DoughfootAgreedBut the long term problem is overpopulation coupled with environmental destruction. But of course as John Maynard Keynes once said, “In the long run we’re all dead.”

Sure… I’ll trust the “invisible hand…” to give the lower 150 Million the “finger.”

Nice. May I borrow some of that?

STEAL FROM THE RICH AND GIVE IT TO THE POOR!

Stop complaining, you whiners.

The Constitution guarantees the right to PURSUE happiness. It does not guarantee happiness itself.

The Declaration of Independence says that “All men are CREATED equal” It does not say that they stay that way.

If you want to increase your wealth, don’t demand that someone else give you theirs. GO OUT AND EARN IT. Invent something that the world wants.