Sort of political Monday

Can't even be wrong!
Sometimes an issue is so badly framed so as to be absolutely useless. In such a case we say that the conclusions reached couldn't even be wrong. The information provided is about useless as it can be. A massive waste of time for everyone including the person who put it together.

Case in point, Joseph Stiglitz's recent piece on inequality in Vanity Fair. Here are the two opening sentences:

It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year.

Notice how Stiglitz has framed the subject.

... nearly a quarter of the nation's income ...

The nation makes income? Well, yes, if you mean by that the combined totals of the incomes of all the individuals living in the nation. But that changes things a bit doesn't it. Because just maybe some of that upper 1 percent have special abilities to create wealth that others do not. Otherwise it sounds sort of like their is a certain amount of wealth that naturally flows out of the nation and some people get a lot more than their share.

And no doubt some people do get more than what others might consider fair. But we don't really know that. It's also possible that if we took these people out of the mix that the nation's overall income might go down. It might even go down considerably. Again, no one knows if that is the case but  Stiglitz has framed it so that option is closed from the outset.

I don't think that is an accident.

On the other hand, anyone who seriously reads a celebrity gossip rag like Vanity Fair to learn about political economy doesn't deserve any more respect than Stiglitz gives them here.