Here's a GREAT way to launch yourself as the new DNC Chair; insult an important constituency!
This can only be filed under "what were you thinking?" The New York Newsday reported this comment from new DNC Chairman just the other day:…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
76 - Scott
"Scott, do try to keep up. This theory has already been disproven previously in this thread."
Disproven? Am I the one that needs to keep up here?
They did under improve under Clinton, right?
They're not improving under Republicans, right?
Try to keep up here Dave. You're slipping.
77 - Dave Nalle
Why do I have to go over this again.
>>They did under improve under Clinton, right? They're not improving under Republicans, right?<<
Wrong. As I demonstrated with data from the census and HHS, the appearance of an increase in poverty was created by the poverty level being indexed for inflation, but since there was no actual inflation, all it did was make people who previously would have not been counted as poor suddenly count as poor even though they actually became no poorer in actual purchasing power. In fact, because the consumer prices for most necessities except for gasoline went down during the last two years they were effectively better off than they had been when they were techinically not poor.
Dave
78 - Scott
So, according to Dave Nalle, "actual" poverty in 2003 went down .04%.
The facts be damned! Poverty went down, dammit!
You have bested me sir. At least I'm man enough to know when I've been beat.
79 - RJ
It's not that whites are "afraid" of hard work, or that they are somehow "lazy."
It's just that, as a group, they demand higher wages than non-whites. And therefore "menial" jobs (which usually go to the lowest bidder, on the labor end of things) will disproportionately go to non-whites.
80 - bhw
Actually, in a period with no actual inflation, the income level used to define poverty by the census bureau is increased by 2.1% every year because of a built in indexing for inflation which was put into their system in the 1970s and which does not make sense in the current economic environment where there is no measurable inflation.
Here's a site that shows the inflation rate for the past few years. The current inflation rate is 3.26%, according to the site.
81 - Dave Nalle
Well, that's a new one on me. Thanks for pointing me to that link. All the sources I've seen suggested an inflation rate closer to 0% or even negative over the last 5 years, but clearly they have a different analysis. I've bookmarked it for further analysis. BTW, that 3.26% figure you cite is only for the month of January of last year. The actual rate of inflation for 2004 is 2.68% for the year. During Bush's first term the inflation rate averaged just over 2% a year according to their figures. Of course, if you take oil prices out of the calculation the rate drops substantially and even goes negative over that 4 year period.
So, if these figures are true the number of poor in the country has stayed pretty much stable. Exciting.
Dave
82 - bhw
Here's a page where they describe the CPI and how they calculate inflation. I look forward to your analysis because I honestly couldn't tell you if they're doing anything differently than any other organization that publishes such info.
The 3.26% was displayed in the right column of this page under the heading of "current inflation rate." It represents the past 12 months, I believe. That same figure appears in the table, too, which seems to be a coincidence.
83 - Dave Nalle
There was actually an error on the chart for 2004. They left the final yearly total blank for some reason, so the last number on the right was the December figure. I had to calculate the figure for the year by averaging the 12 months.
Dave
84 - Christian
Don't you get it? he was alluding to the fact that there are so few black republicans that the party would have to count the black staff as attendees to whatever
85 - Christian
it seems that every time a white person begins to mention black folks we stopp listening and decide that we are being mocked