Re: progress
On Mar 5, 2007, at 9:41 PM, Paul wrote:
I believe the Heritage Foundation study, with their exquisite sense of class, tracks the recruits by zip code and use just that to
classify them economically. Hard to believe…but remember the source.
It’s the data that’s available. And it’s not a bad proxy, as proxies
go. I’m guessing that recruits coming from zip codes like 10027 or
10032 (both Harlem) are not the poorest people in their zip code,
either.
A smaller point: one imagines that the military study uses the Census Bureau’s CPS as a base comparator for the population at large. At
one time this was a legitimate standard, but in the economy of today we know it significantly understates inequality (leaves out realized capital
gains, etc)
Cap gains are insignificant for most households, except at the high
end, and neither Kane/Heritage, the military, or I would argue that
there are a lot of high enders in the military.
I’ve spent some time talking about this with Christian Parenti, who’s
spent a lot of time around the army in Iraq & Afghanistan, and he too
says the military is pretty much a cross-section of US society, and
that the poverty draft is BS. So when intelligent journalists confirm
that hard numbers that exist, I’d say the case is pretty much closed.
Doug