Semi-Daily Journal

Here's an economics question for Professor DeLong:

A generation ago, a college education was not required in order to get a good job. Now at least some college education is virtually required for any job. Good jobs often require 6 or 8 years of college education. A generation ago, a home computer was not required for employment, but now it is-- and rarely do employers provide them. One can be forced to swallow thousands of dollars in costs for computer equipment that is exclusively for the convenience of the employer.

Does the CPI adequately reflect these changes in American life? One explanation for the declining American savings rate could be that the CPI fails to measure the cost of living and that the middle class is actually getting poorer. (For extra credit:) How could that proposition be tested?

Charles, you make some wild assertions:
"Good jobs often require 6 or 8 years of college education. A generation ago, a home computer was not required for employment, but now it is"

Plenty of good jobs exist without requiring six years of college education or a computer if you define a good job as a job that offers a "decent living without undue toil". Your personal standards may be higher than that, but that only means you are not reflective of society as a whole.

The problem is that these good jobs are diminishing and that is why the middle class is being thinned out. If we want to be a "good society" we must maintain these jobs. We must also keep the trailer parks open because there will always be people who refuse to do even "reasonable toil", much less "undo toil"

One of the things that scares me most about the gang of idiots in Washington is that they're intent on making it much more difficult to earn enough to maintain a middle-class lifestyle.

This takes us down a dangerous path, Professor DeLong, a dangerous path indeed: after all, if a right is alienable in a poor, technologically backwards, but becomes inalienable once the society becomes richer and more advanced, it must go the other way, too. So these inalienable rights must not, indeed, but inalienable after all, but rather socially constructed rights depending on time and circumstance. Yet if rights like the right to adequate clothing and shelter are inalienable in a society like ours (at least in some circles), but it could be otherwise, then human rights are not universal. Not only are "economic human rights" not universal, in fact, but there's no reason to think any human rights are universal, and that all human rights are socially constructed: that is, unless there are two classes of inalienable rights, one that's socially constructed and one that's universal! The problem is, how do you tell the difference? And if all human rights are socially constructed, how do you avoid apologism for the cultural right of the Chinese government to torture and kill dissidents (unless, that is, you turn to the weak palliative of saying that the government of China is violating its own cultural concepts of right, wrong, and inalienable rights, which may or may not be true in the Chinese case, but there are certainly circumstances such that it could be untrue).

Ack... you've bruised my universalist liberal sense, Brad!

An alternative way to resolve Julian's problem is to resolve, as Amartya Sen did among others, that universalist liberalism needs a stronger foundation than the always metaphysically suspect concept of natural rights.

Well, it seems to me I recall a few Marxist efforts to outline exactly such a basis. In particular, I'm thinking of the notion that people have the right to self-development. Self-development is hindered by having opportunities closed to you because all your wages go to basic expenses like housing and food, leaving nothing for books or movies or education. In China, you could well make the case that someone who works 60 hours a week in a shop and has no computer can, in fact, take advantage of many of the opportunities available in Chinese society because that level of labour and productivity still provides for sufficient savings and adequate free time. In America, you would be hard pressed to say that someone who puts in 60 hours a week at multiple minimum wage jobs has the same opportunity to take advantage of what is on offer.

Essentially, it fixes the standard of living that people can claim as a right to the level at which doors don't close for them, recognising that the actual specifics of that standard change with time. Furthermore, I think a good case can be made that freedom from torture, fair courts, religious choice, free speech and all the other classical liberal human rights also enhance the opportunity for self-development and are, therefore, readily justified by this way of thinking.

Plenty of good jobs exist without requiring six years of college education or a computer if you define a good job as a job that offers a "decent living without undue toil".

Hmm. Can you name one? Furthermore, can you name one that doesn't require a special, uncommon talent?

We must also keep the trailer parks open because there will always be people who refuse to do even "reasonable toil", much less "undo toil."

An anecdote: the people I've known from trailer parks work a lot harder than anyone else.

"Plenty of good jobs exist without requiring six years of college education or a computer if you define a good job as a job that offers a "decent living without undue toil".

Hmm. Can you name one?"

I believe I can name more than one: construction (which can pay $80/per hour in NY for some union jobs), those guys in orange vests on the side of the road make good money, most manufacturing jobs are still "good jobs", mailmen, dockworkers, firemen. There are plenty of good jobs, but they are diminishing. For every one of these jobs that are lost somebody ends up in a McJob, and that is what is killing our economy.

Your point about people living in trailer parks is well-taken. Many/most of them do work very hard, but many/most have made very bad personal decisions.

Uh, Jason, I personally know at least 50 people, younger than 50, who never attended college, that have earned at least $750,000 in the past ten years, and several of them have earned in excess of 1.5 million. They don't live in high-cost areas, so they have extremely comfortable material lives. They also are quite driven, focused, and work extremely hard. I know many other people who have not been willing to give up what these people have given up to earn this sort of income, but still have very comfortable lives absent a college education. Not suprisingly, everybody does not value money equally. What links all these people is that they don't see themselves as employees, dependent on employers for their material well-being. This is true even among those that are employees. They see themselves as people who can make themselves extremely useful to others in a variety of ways, ways that many might consider quite mundane. How many people in this forum would consider being a caretaker of other people's lawns beneath their dignity? Many, I suppose, but I know a man who is now about 40 years old who started cutting other people's grass when he was out of high school, for a near-minimum wage, made himself an expert on grass on his own time, and has sold his expertise for the past ten years to people who have need for such knowledge for about $75 an hour. He turns down business all the time, because he doesn't want to work as hard as he used to. Nope, you don't need a college education to make a lot of money, although it certainly can help. What you do need, however, is a willingness to think creatively, and to focus to the degree necessary to earn the amount of money that one considers important.

Dear Mr. Jordan:

Where you have gone wrong is in assuming that the word "often" is identical to the word "always". Nor do I define a "good job" as meaning a "decent living without undue toil". I define it as one delivering an income above the median. For example: Physician, lawyer, tenured professor, senior scientist.

Go search for straw men elsewhere. This is a high-class blog.

Congratulations to Will Allen for his common sense post. He's exactly correct.

BTW, I've been feeding the cat of a young couple who live in a trailer (and operate their landscaping business out of it) for the last six weeks, while they vacation on their ranch in their native Mexico. A trailer that is meticulously maintained and kept clean (I've never seen even a speck of dust when they have invited me for dinners). d square should be so lucky as to know such people.

Of course, by Mr. Utwater's reasoning, 50% of the population will never have a good job, no matter what happens in the future.

>>They also are quite driven, focused, and work extremely hard<<

I know a young man who has no educational qualifications at all, but has managed to earn over a million pounds sterling in the last five years. He also happens to be extremely good at association football.

What do we do with the people who were not born so blessed, but who nevertheless deserve a decent life?

By the way, I have no idea what Sullivan is trying to say, but it is obvious from the post quoted above that I meant no slight on people who live in trailers, and to insinuate otherwise is contemptible.

It is more than a little disingenuous to compare the rarity of being in the top .005 percentile of the population in manipulating a ball with one's foot with being in the percentile of the population who have the ability to work 80 hours a week until one has gained the ability to perform a sufficiently unique task that allows one to have a comfortable life. Furthermore, with all the focus on what people "deserve" it is all too often forgotten what people have a responsibility to do, which is to find a way to make themselves useful enough to others in a sufficiently unique manner so as to convince others to willingly part with what is needed to live a comfortable life. In a society in which the average amont of time watching televised boors behave stupidly exceeds 20 hours/week, it cannot be said that the average citizens are maximizing their ability to make themelves useful to others. To those that truly lack the mental or physical ability make themselves useful to others, I have no objection to seeing that they have dignified lives despite that inability. The percentage of the population that is so unfortunate, however, is quite small.

"Plenty of good jobs exist without requiring six years of college education or a computer if you define a good job as a job that offers a "decent living without undue toil"

"Hmm. Can you name one?"

First of all, the number of jobs that require six years of college is less than the number of jobs that require four years of college. Second, plenty of jobs require you to work on a computer, but I've yet to hear of one that requires you to supply your own. A computer of your own may allow you to do some work at home, if you're unfortunate enough to have an employer that doesn't supply laptops, but the alternative is to stay at the office where the company-owned computer is quite sufficient.

Mr. Allen states that "Of course, by Mr. Utwater's reasoning, 50% of the population will never have a good job, no matter what happens in the future."

That's very poor reasoning. As you yourself pointed out, people whose prospects might seem slim indeed do manage to make a good living-- even become rich. And of course, those who are well-to-do occasionally fall.

What I stated, and will gladly say again is that "good" means "better than the typical", with "typical" being defined as "median" (others may prefer the mean or the mode). I think you'll find that dictionaries agree with this general approach.

-------

Educated people have discovered that anecdote, for whatever its social interest, conversational value and utility in discovering objects for research, is inferior to statistical analysis. And, believe it or not, the relationship between education and income has been studied.

To quote one example of such study, "In the US, with an average education level of 12 years of schooling in 1990, the return to education would be about 7.5%." (http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu/labor/teulings.pdf). This is a very good investment indeed.

To confirm that, we have this study, specific to the US: According to the Census Bureau, over an adult's working life, high school graduates earn an average of $1.2 million; associate's degree holders earn about $1.6 million; and bachelor's degree holders earn about $2.1 million (Day and Newburger, 2002) (http://www.eriche.org/digests/2002-06.html).

Many other studies confirm this general finding.

Those who want to present anecdotal evidence are welcome to do so, but shouldn't assume that anyone who knows the situation will take them seriously. We all know "some guy" who beat the odds-- smoked all his life and lived to be 100, bought just one lottery ticket and won 10 million, had a grade school education and is making millions. But what one wants to discover in developing policy is not what happens to "some guy", but what happens to the typical person.

Hence the relevance of the linen shirt.

Chaz,
The linen shirt is relevant because it is supposed to represent the minimum for a decent living (opportunity), not because it represents the median. We are talking about a good job in the context of the original post. In other words, in the context of the original post, a good job means "the opportunity to make a decent living without undue toil". You are talking about the dictionary and your personal opinions of a good job.

The important thing is maintaining enough good jobs for the hard working but unskilled to enter the middle class.

If it is insisted that the obvious be belabored, I guess it can be done. I never contested that education was, on average, very helpful in earning a higher income. I contested the following implied assertion, in the form of a question:

""Plenty of good jobs exist without requiring six years of college education or a computer if you define a good job as a job that offers a "decent living without undue toil"."

"Hmm. Can you name one? Furthermore, can you name one that doesn't require a special, uncommon talent?"

I suppose we could quibble over the meaning of the term "plenty", but if tens of thousands of people earn income well in excess of the median without a college education, then it can be reasonably said it is not extraordinarily unusual to earn a large income without a college education. Salespeople, small businessowners, some blue collar jobs, etc. quite frequently earn more than 100k per year, well in excess of the median, without benefit of a college education. Of course, there are many people who have college degrees who fail to earn a median income.

Furthermore if one defines a good income as
being in excess of the median, then it is completely unremarkable, and completely unsolvable, that a large percentage (50%) of the population doesn't earn a good income, which renders any question as to what is to be done about failure to earn a "good" income moot, since no matter what is done, 50% of the population will have less than median income. Tell me, is a Honda Civic a less-than-"good" car, because most cars sold in the U.S. in any given year cost more than a Civic, reflecting their larger size, greater features, etc.?

Dear Mr Jordan:

Evidently, you cannot tell the difference between me and Professor DeLong. Professor DeLong is the person who used the phrase regarding making a living without undue toil, though *not* in reference to what constitutes a good job. You were the one who conflated the two points. This error on your part does not surprise me since you also cannot tell the difference between the word "often" and the word "always". Or that you accuse me of making "wild assertions" when in fact I have been very precise in saying exactly what I mean, while you have repeatedly mischaracterized.

The important thing *to you* may be "maintaining enough good jobs for the hard working but unskilled to enter the middle class". The important thing *to me* is knowing Professor DeLong's opinion on whether the Consumer Price Index accurately measures the cost of living. Unless you are able to supply that specific information, please do not reply.

-------------------

Mr. Allen, if it helps, let me repeat (again!) that I agree with you that some people without college education make good money.

The whole point of the linen shirt parable, if you will go about reading it, is that what constitutes a good living changes with what constitutes the norm-- and hence the importance of looking at median rather than absolute income. (In comparison to our distant ancestors, we are *all* wildly rich).

In the parable, a tradesman who could not afford a linen shirt could also not make a good livelihood. Or, perhaps a few could-- perhaps those running taverns or street prostitution-- but most could not. By direct comparison with the parable, education is strongly correlated with income (just as the linen shirt is correlated to income). Some may make a good livelihood without it, but most cannot.

Hence my interest in whether the CPI accurately measures the cost of living... to which I have so far seen no response, sensible or not.

An alternative way to resolve Julian's problem is to resolve, as Amartya Sen did among others, that universalist liberalism needs a stronger foundation than the always metaphysically suspect concept of natural rights.

From postmodernist to foundationalist in one short week! Did that burning bush leave any messages for me?

I think the labor market Charles Utwater is looking for is in some burg in Minnesota. Near a lake.

But, as usual, I'm entertained by d squared's reinvention of his remarks:

>> Taking out clue from the fact that the senses of "decent" which refer to the display of taboo body parts, and the senses which refer to material standards of living, must have some common origin, I'd define "a decent standard of living" as "the lowest level of material possessions in a society which allows one to escape shame and prejudice". So for example, while the phrase "trailer trash" is in common usage, a decent standard of living implies not living in a trailer. > it is obvious from the post quoted above that I meant no slight on people who live in trailers, and to insinuate otherwise is contemptible. <<

Uh, Jason, I personally know at least 50 people, younger than 50, who never attended college, that have earned at least $750,000 in the past ten years, and several of them have earned in excess of 1.5 million.

Do, pray tell, tell us what they do?

I believe I can name more than one: construction (which can pay $80/per hour in NY for some union jobs), those guys in orange vests on the side of the road make good money, most manufacturing jobs are still "good jobs", mailmen, dockworkers, firemen. There are plenty of good jobs, but they are diminishing. For every one of these jobs that are lost somebody ends up in a McJob, and that is what is killing our economy.

Standing on the side of the road in the hot sun/freezing cold sounds pretty shitty to me, and it's a government job anyway. Construction, dockworkers, firemen, mailmen: all unionized, which surely doesn't count.

I'll clarify: can you name a non-union, non-government job? Salesperson is the only one I can think of, and I was tenuous about including it because it's highly dependent on the person involved; not everyone can do it and earn a living. Small business owner is iffy too, because not everyone can get access to capital.

Again (!) I must point out that not once did I dispute the assertion that education was correlated with income. I merely differed with the implied assertion that it is greatly unusual for those that lack a college education to earn a good income. It is not. I also think you conflate the choice not to make income in excess of the median with the inability to do so.

To speak of the CPI without reference to wildly more bountiful life that even the "poor" benefit from today, and not just in comparison to our "distant" ancestors, is also a little suspect. How "rich" did someone have to be only three generations ago to enjoy air conditioning in their home? How many "poor" people do so today? Have you ever had to manually clean a family's clothes on a regular basis? How many "poor" people today have never had that monotonous task, as opposed to how many "middle class" people did it all the time only a few generations ago? How many middle class people of today would gladly exchange material conditions with the middle class of only thirty years ago? Whattya' think the odds are they'd swap their Honda Civic for a Ford Maverick? Try tellin' 'em that their Panasonic 32" Flat Screen T.V. is gonna be swapped out for a Philco 19" that has tubes that need to be regularly replaced, and that they are gonna have to kick in an extra $200 for the pleasure. You just may get a dispute as to whether it is a desirable swap. Oh, one more thing (not that there aren't many more things). Try telling today's middle class that they would be better off in the smaller home that their middle class brethren enjoyed twenty or thirty years ago, or even that they would be better off renting an apartment. Again, some may beg to differ.

Well, Jason, there isn't a job on this planet that everyone can do, so if your assertion is that not everyone can have a particular job, I'll concede the point. On the chance that you meant to assert that there aren't people in jobs that pay in excess of the median without a college education, I'll be more specific. My number of fifty, previously cited, is actually quite low. Geez, I know at least 18 automobile salespeople alone without college degrees who earn more than $75,000 dollars/year. If I actually went though my files (I've been self-employed for nearly 20 years), I could literally name hundreds of salespeople in various fields with similar experiences. Now, if I were to start naming non-college educated small business owners, many with extremely low start-up costs, who I have met, and who have earned income in excess of the median, I could name a few hundred more. It really ain't all that unusual. Hell, I know bartenders who have paid off mortgages by the time they were 35 with tip money!! You need to get out more; if nothing else you can have a few drinks.

I'm not sure why union jobs should be excluded from the category; I'm certainly not anti-union, and have no problem with people trying to non-violently maximize their negotiating power. Does having a formal education help? Sure it does, and I never tried to say otherwise. I merely disputed the notion that lack of college education consigned one to a low income. It does not, as long as one comes to the realization that one has to learn how to do something that is uniquely useful to others, whether that is in a college classroom, somebody's back yard , or even a saloon.
P.S.-by the way, the grass consultant I know who charges $75/hour LOVES being outside all day, in all sorts of weather. It is good to realize that not everyone shares your preferences.

"The hypothesis is not refuted."

Let's call it the Friedman hypothesis: that deficits tend to decrease spending. That is, surpluses should be correlated with spending (deficits inversely correlated with spending).

I loaded the % of GDP data on 1962-2001 from the tables of section 8 into Excel, and ran some correlations. I deleted the TQ, because I'm too lazy to fix up the correlation numbers correctly.

First, between surpluses and the various categories.

Total -.89
Discretionary -.16
Defense -.08
Nondefense -.32
International -.03
Domestic -.33
Mandatory -.42

Defense looks about like what you'd expect: it doesn't respond at all. International spending is surprising. Everything else is *way* surprising: a negative correlation means that when deficits go up (or surpluses go down, equivalently), spending tends to go *up*. Still, this is completely the opposite of the Friedman hypothesis.

Next, with a one year time lag:

Total -.76
Discretionary -.04
Defense 0.00 (!)
Nondefense -.16
International .11
Domestic -.19
Mandatory -.44

About the same, although the correlations are even worse for Friedman.

Next, the same analysis, comparing interest outlays to the spending categories.

Total .62
Discretionary -.68
Defense -.59
Nondefense -.42
International -.64
Domestic -.25
Mandatory .87

Total spending going up when interest payments go up makes sense. The rest of it is bizarre: why would interest payment exhibit a strong correlation with mandatory outlays, while everything else has a negative correlation? Why on earth does defense spending have a stronger negative correlation with interest outlays than domestic spending?

Same deal, one year lag:

Total .51
Discretionary -.73
Defense -.62
Nondefense -.55
International -.69
Domestic -.40
Mandatory .85

No significant change, and that pesky "defense spending responds more strongly to interest payments going up than domestic spending" thing is still there.

In short, the Friedman hypothesis, that deficits constrain spending (discretionary, total, mandatory, you name it), does not match the data on deficits.

An alternate Friedman hypothesis, that interest payments constrain spending, is kinda-sorta true, but makes no sense: interest payments apparently constrain defense spending more than they do domestic spending. Do conservatives want to force cuts in defense spending and increase mandatory payments? That defense spending makes no sense in the interest payment comparision, but perfect sense in the deficit comparision, makes me think there's something I'm missing with interest outlays. Oh, don't let this stop you from spinning on a dime and arguing that looking at deficits is stupid, but looking at interest outlays makes perfect sense, Patrick Sullivan.

"Why the "progressives" of today don't even consider this possibility, and its policy implications for today, is beyond me. ISTM they can only defeat their own intentions by failing to do so."

Progressives don't talk about means-testing social security because they're terrified that it'd make it a "welfare program" like AFDC, with all of relevant political exposure to elimination by conservatives. They're probably not right; people would still have to work for it. They're hyper-cautious after getting absolutely destroyed on AFDC, though, rightly or wrongly.

Whoopsie, wrong thread. Ignore that last post.

Chaz,
I am getting bored so this is my last response to you. The following is from the website policies for this website: "Looking back over the comments, it seems to me that they suffer at times from excessive topic drift. I've had a bunch of complaints that clicking on "comments" links gets one a discussion that has very little to do with the post..." Therefore if your mentioning of a "good job" wasn't in the context of the theme of the original post, it was inappropriate (as is this post according to that policy).

Furthermore, while your use of the word "often" is technically correct, by surrounding it with "virtually required" and again "required" I am made comfortable with my "wild assertion" statement. And finally, it appears that Professor DeLong is not interested in your CPI question, perhaps because its foundations were so faulty.

On another matter - Firemen don't count? Union jobs don't count? Why not forget the pretenses and say we're not discussing reality anymore?

"An alternative way to resolve Julian's problem is to resolve, as Amartya Sen did among others, that universalist liberalism needs a stronger foundation than the always metaphysically suspect concept of natural rights."

Or, better yet, become a pragmatist. We don't need to talk about natural rights of foundations to discuss what constitutes a decent standard of living. The relativism problem raised by Julian is a red herring.

Mr. Allen says: "To speak of the CPI without reference to wildly more bountiful life that even the "poor" benefit from today, and not just in comparison to our "distant" ancestors, is also a little suspect. How "rich" did someone have to be only three generations ago to enjoy air conditioning in their home? How many "poor" people do so today? "

You seem to have a talent for understanding the obvious, Mr. Allen. How about focusing on the obviouser. What fraction of the median annual income did the purchase of a linen shirt require in 1800 vs. what it requires today? While I don't know the numerical answer, I know that today the median income can purchase more shirts than it could 200 years ago. Thus, while it's certainly true that technology has made more consumer choices available, it is also inarguable (except by someone whose mission in life is to erect strawmen) that this generation is richer than its ancestors.

And I am still waiting for some sort of answer as to whether the CPI as currently constructed accurately measures the standard of living, given the fact that good jobs now often require a college education, something that was not true a generation ago.

______________________

Mr Jordan says "I am getting bored so this is my last response to you."

The bandwidth thanks you.

But, as usual, I'm entertained by d squared's reinvention of his remarks:

And we're all entertained by your obtuse inability to read them.

The point, if it must be belabored, is that the CPI obviously is a very, very, rough measure of a very complex phenomena, and thus is often inadequate to the task. Now, if we are to discuss what you actually contended, originally, let the following be examined:

"Now at least some college education is virtually required for any job. Good jobs often require 6 or 8 years of college education. A generation ago, a home computer was not required for employment, but now it is-- and rarely do employers provide them. One can be forced to swallow thousands of dollars in costs for computer equipment that is exclusively for the convenience of the employer.

Does the CPI adequately reflect these changes in American life? One explanation for the declining American savings rate could be that the CPI fails to measure the cost of living and that the middle class is actually getting poorer."

The sentences above contain so many inaccuracies, that it renders this entire exercise a little pointless. First, as has been amply proven, some college education is NOT virtually required for any job, so to contend that it is is really quite silly. The accuracy of the contention that 6 to 8 years of college are often required for a "good" job revolves around how one defines "often", so absent a definition of "often", the contention cannot be evaluated. Next, the contention that a home computer is required for employment is so demonstrably false that it barely warrants a response, but in case it hasn't been noticed, most employees still work in their employers' facilities, where the computers are paid for by the employer.

Finally, to contend that the middle class is "poorer", without reference to how better and cheaper technology greatly enriches the lives of the middle class, even compared to the standards of only 20 years ago, is too silly for words. Please tell us, Mr. Utwater, would the "poorer" middle class citizen of today gladly swap his standard of living with the "richer" middle class citizen of even 20 years ago, much less 40 or 60 years ago? If the middle class citizen of today would not make that swap with the middle class citizen of 1983, in what meaningful way is the middle class citizen of today "poorer"? Or is it your contention that the middle class citizen of 2003 is just too dumb to understand that his middle class counterparts had it better in 1983?

>> Oh, don't let this stop you from spinning on a dime and arguing that looking at deficits is stupid, but looking at interest outlays makes perfect sense, Patrick Sullivan.<<

Now the above is rich. Coming as it does from a guy who literally doesn't even know where he's posting.

And more trouble for Jason's:

" Standing on the side of the road in the hot sun/freezing cold sounds pretty shitty to me, and it's a government job anyway. Construction, dockworkers, firemen, mailmen: all unionized, which surely doesn't count.

" I'll clarify: can you name a non-union, non-government job? "

First, as I have suspected for a long time, Jason has absolutely no contact with the world in which the overwhelming majority of people live. Second, not all construction work is unionized, and only a minority are government jobs. Third, only about 14% of American workers belong to unions.

Finally, all the people who work for me earn above average incomes, and there isn't a college degree among them. In fact, my brother refuses to hire college grads because he thinks that if they were so stupid as to waste four years of their lives that way, they aren't smart enough to be of any use to us.

You're telling me *non-union* construction jobs are "good jobs?" Heavy labor for median wages? Sheesh.

D-squared writes, "An alternative way to resolve Julian's problem is to resolve, as Amartya Sen did among others, that universalist liberalism needs a stronger foundation than the always metaphysically suspect concept of natural rights."

Another way to resolve Julian's problem is to refuse to accept the concept of "positive rights"..."rights" which an individual demands that *other* individuals provide.

There is nearly universal agreement that many *negative* rights are inalienable. (Or, at least, ought to be...since the history of homo sapiens shows that there is no "right" that can't be taken away, as a matter of practice.)

For example, one has an inalienable right to "pursue happiness." "Pursue happiness" is a "negative" right. That is, no other individuals or government may take away one's right to "pursue" happiness. If it had just been written as an inalienable right to happiness--rather than "pursue" happiness--it would be a positive right. That is, other individuals (or governments) would be required to provide happiness.

D-squared's suggests that "...the proper function of civil society to provide a decent standard of living for its members,..." He even considers that "bleeding obvious." But many liberals--real liberals, not faux liberals--not only don't consider that "bleeding obvious," they don't even consider that correct.

From this website:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/

"A paternalist imposes on a person for his own good, and typically this imposition would appear to limit that person's freedom. The paternalist stops him from drinking or taking drugs. But if drinking and so on hinders a person from acting autonomously, then this imposition may actually increase his freedom, since it increases his long-term propensity to act autonomously (Young, 1986). Thus, in Rousseau's chilling words, it seems that one can be ‘forced to be free’ (1973 [1762]: 177)."

"What a road of clap!"--->Benny Hill

"Benn, for instance, endorses ‘rights to the conditions for autonomy’ --- ‘the rights to such conditions would presumably include the Universal Declaration rights to education, to leisure, and to participate in the cultural life of the community...’ (1988: 251-52; but cf. Spector, 1992). This sort of welfarist-participatory state is precisely that which many advocates of negative liberty see as a threat to freedom."
Yes, in fact, it's "bleeding obvious" that such a state is currently reducing freedom around the world!

Mark Bahner (classical, i.e., "negative-liberties" liberal)

//
Finally, all the people who work for me earn above average incomes, and there isn't a college degree among them. In fact, my brother refuses to hire college grads because he thinks that if they were so stupid as to waste four years of their lives that way, they aren't smart enough to be of any use to us.
//

Some works do not require formal thinking, then for these it may be that a college degree is not worth to take, on the other side, if one has a college degree, it will search a work in which that degree is meaningful.

You claim that unformed people, at barely majority of age are able to do a work that is more paid than the average? I'm no economist, but on itself that sounds false.

Now about that not wanting formed people as workers may be a proof that your brother is afraid that an instructed woorker will not be so easy to manipulate.So you should have written they are too smart to be of any use to us

DSW

How revealing are so many comments here. This one:

" You're telling me *non-union* construction jobs are "good jobs?" Heavy labor for median wages? Sheesh."

tells me the poster has no clue about how the world works. "Median wages", which are those above what half the workforce receives, are supposed to be GIVEN for little labor?

And his ducking the significance of my pointing out to him that only 14% of the workers belong to unions, tells me something about him too.

Then there is this beauty:

" Now about that not wanting formed people as workers may be a proof that your brother is afraid that an instructed woorker will not be so easy to manipulate.So you should have written they are too smart to be of any use to us. "

Reminds me of a point Tom Sowell is fond of making. That the standards for being able to say you KNOW how to do something, are usually much higher in the areas that intellectuals like to look down their noses at, than are the standards in their own professions.

Sowell's example in "Knowledge and Decisions" being that of the farm boy who, in order to say he knows how to milk a cow, actually has to go into the barn with an empty pail and come back with one filled with milk. He contrasts that with a criminologist who may have a Phd, but never needs to go into a community and lower the crime rate, to be considered knowledgeable in his field.

Mr. Sullivan, I'm sure you have better things to do than behave like a petty little ass.

Or rather, I'm not sure about you, but I am sure about me. So please forgive me if I am not going to play with you about the meanings of words like "virtually" or "often" or whether computers are *always* required for employment or whatever other pointless things you choose to waste your life on.

The question remains-- and has not been answered-- whether the CPI is an accurate measure of the living standard or whether the increasing need for a college education and equipment ancillary to a career (such as computers) is causing living standards to be lower than we officially think they are.

Mr. Utwatter, please forgive us for actually reading what you wrote, as opposed to reading your mind. Now, if your original question was weather the CPI accurately reflected education costs and other types of needed (of course, we will be forced to read your mind as to the definition of "needed", since you apparently think the attempt to take your words at plain meaning to be "petty") technology, that might be a useful area of inquiry. As I stated above, the CPI is a very, very, rough measure of a complex phenomena, and thus has many deficiencies, such as reflecting quantum leaps in quality in such every day items as automobiles, televisions, cell phones, etc. Unfortunately, what you originally wrote was:

"Does the CPI adequately reflect these changes in American life? One explanation for the declining American savings rate could be that the CPI fails to measure the cost of living and that the middle class is actually getting poorer."

....which is entirely different than asking:

"The question remains-- and has not been answered-- whether the CPI is an accurate measure of the living standard or whether the increasing need for a college education and equipment ancillary to a career (such as computers) is causing living standards to be lower than we officially think they are."

Now, perhaps in the future we could avoid a needless waste of time if you were to insert the following in your posts:

(PNATWIW, RMM)

to indicate that readers are to pay no attention to what you write, but are instead supposed to read your mind. Please indicate weather a Ouiji board or the entrails of a freshly slaughtered chicked are to be devined in order to accomplish the task.

And his ducking the significance of my pointing out to him that only 14% of the workers belong to unions, tells me something about him too.

For chrissakes, Patrick, that's part of the reason I said union jobs are a bad example of a "decent job you can have without a college education". Do I have to spell everything out?

First, as I have suspected for a long time, Jason has absolutely no contact with the world in which the overwhelming majority of people live.

Oh yes: go fuck yourself.

I guess the politeness policy is as ironclad as a UN Resolution. But would Jason like to explain how he gets from:

" Standing on the side of the road in the hot sun/freezing cold sounds pretty shitty to me, and it's a government job anyway. Construction, dockworkers, firemen, mailmen: all unionized, which surely doesn't count."

To his new claim that it is because union jobs are only 14% of the workforce that they are a poor example?

BTW, this is more evidence, as if it were needed, that you haven't a clue about the kind of work people normally do:

" Small business owner is iffy too, because not everyone can get access to capital.".

All kinds of people start their own businesses with small loans from friends and family, or with "sweat equity". But a guy who has never been outside of a classroom wouldn't know that, I guess.

As for Charles Utwatter, weren't you the guy bitching that people confused you with someone else?

Sigh. Time for a holier-than-though Ms. Manners reminder. Guys, don't swear at Patrick--it's just not worth the effort of pushing keys.

And Patrick, if you use phrases like "the poster has no clue about how the world works," or "the standards for being able to say you KNOW how to do something, are usually much higher in the areas that intellectuals like to look down their noses at..." (intellectual, btw, is a common right-wing swear word which is rapidly replacing its fossil ancestors "Jew" and "Nigger"), then you have yourself to blame just as much when you receive textual abuse, and abrogate the right to accuse others of hypocrisy.

Time to get out of this thread.

andres, I use the word "intellectual" as it is used by numerous economists, including Schumpeter and Hayek, as well as Sowell (all professional intellectuals themselves). I.e. a second hand dealer in ideas.

"The question remains-- and has not been answered-- whether the CPI is an accurate measure of the living standard or whether the increasing need for a college education and equipment ancillary to a career (such as computers) is causing living standards to be lower than we officially think they are."

First of all, as has already been pointed out, there is no increasing need for equipment ancillary to a career. Employers that want you to work on computers will provide them in nearly all cases.

Second, the CPI is supposed to measure inflation. Capital investments that generate or increase income (such as education) are completely unrelated. I'd be all for defining "income" to take into account the upfront investment in education required to generate said income. But the need for such an investment has nothing to do with inflation. (Changes in the price of it do, however).