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Title: It's Getting Better All the Time : 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 Years by Stephen Moore, Julian Lincoln Simon ISBN: 1-882577-97-3 Publisher: Cato Institute Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Steve Moore is the new doomslayer.
Comment: This book establishes Stephen Moore as Julian Simon's intellectual successor and the leading doomslayer in the world. Steve explodes all of the dystopian myths about American society. And the book features beautiful, full-color charts and graphs on just about every other page.
Rating: 2
Summary: A not entirely forthright look at the subject
Comment: Moore is president of the conservative Club for Growth and has been a vociferous spokesperson for slashing taxes and reducing the size of government. He is well known for twisting the facts and employing faulty statistics to prove his point. An example of this is relying upon per capita income rather than the more widely accepted (and more revealing) family income.
Clearly, many of the trends described in the book are what most people, including myself, would agree to be improvements over the past 100 years. From educational and environmental improvements to declining poverty rates for the elderly, these are good things.
However, many of the improvements they list could be ascribed to the big government they loathe. The improvements in the environment which Moore and Simon laud did not come about because industry volunteered to restrict their emission of pollutants. Those improvements came about because of government legislation and adequate tax revenues to enforce it. For example, Detroit automakers refused to increase fuel efficiency until legislation required it, just as they refused seatbelts. It could also be argued that the improvements in education are the result of government intervention. Likewise, elderly poverty rates. Even the Internet we are using this very moment was ultimately derived from the Department of Defense.
Moore and Simon also never discuss the growing disparity in wealth in the United States, in which inequality has grown since the late 1960's. This inequality, as quantified by the Gini Index, shows the U.S. with greater inequality than any other industrial or "wealthy" nation. While those at the top control ever more wealth, there is less for those at the bottom of the ladder. Sure, the poor in America are mostly better off than in a third world country, but it doesn't follow that that's good enough.
In all, I'd say there are some reasonable points made here, but Moore and Simon paint a picture that is somewhat brighter than reality.
Rating: 4
Summary: Smaller, richer families
Comment: A reader from Great Falls is off base on "family income" as a measure of prosperity. "Household income" is another dubious measure. Over the last several decades, the average size of a family, and of a household, has steadily decreased. Several factors contribute to this decline, more frequent divorce, more independent elderly and children, etc. This decline makes average "family income" and "household income" very misleading measures of changing wealth, because these statistics measure the income of fewer and fewer people as time passes. "Household income" rose little between the seventies and mid-nineties for example, according to the Census Bureau's annual household survey, but individual income (per capita income) rose steadily in the same period. Not surprisingly, as people become wealthier, they choose to live more independently, in smaller groups. If we accept "family income" or "household income" as a measure of wealth, rather than per capita income, we're assuming that six people living in one house with an income of $50k are richer than six people living in two houses, each with three people earning $40k. Of course, this assumption is absurd.
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Title: The Ultimate Resource 2 by Julian Lincoln Simon ISBN: 0691003815 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 July, 1998 List Price(USD): $42.50 |
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Title: Myths of Rich & Poor: Why We're Better Off Than We Think by W. Michael Cox, Richard Alm ISBN: 0465047831 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: January, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.50 |
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Title: Give Me a Break : How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media... by John Stossel ISBN: 0060529148 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 20 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Hoodwinking the Nation by Julian Lincoln Simon ISBN: 1560004347 Publisher: Transaction Pub Pub. Date: July, 1999 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Virtuous Journalist by Stephen Klaidman, Tom L. Beauchamp ISBN: 0195056884 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: July, 1988 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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