I Don't Think So

Sometimes I think my admiration for The Economist, and how much I depend on it for my world view, is going up at about the same pace as the number of things they say that I disagree with or have trouble believing.

Last week they had one of the most interesting articles I have ever read about inequality. The TLDR is that while it's beyond debate that pre-tax inequality has risen sharply in the last two decades or so, after tax inequality has barely budged. In other words, governments have done a decent job of tax and subsidies. They had all kinds of statistics and graphs supporting this belief. Here's one:

This is showing that spending by the 1% is actually less than spending by the lowest 50%, since the late 1990's. Well, that's great and all, but it kind of glosses over the fact that rich people still spend around 18x more than poor people, on average, or, that spending is just one part of the picture. Graphing income would, presumably, look much less favorable. The accompanying article also referred to "robbing the rich" a choice of words which seems completely inappropriate in a supposedly unbiased newspaper. Still, great article.

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I was rather disappointed to see them coming out against social media bans, which are now in effect in Australia and being mooted in many other countries. They claim that it is one of very few issues on which pretty much every adult (rich, poor, right, left, Europe, America, China) agrees: that we should have them. Except The Economist. They argue that they are arbitrary (Facebook banned, WhatsApp not), impossible to enforce (yet somehow, banks have figured these things out), and that when kids turn 16, they will be screwed for lack of experience. I find all these arguments not compelling. Actually, I'd probably be OK with a blanket smart phone ban on, say, under 12, for a start. Unfortunately that horse bolted a long, long time ago.