More Economic Facts and Fallacies
By Sam Schneider | March 10th, 2008Thomas Sowell talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about ‘the misleading nature of measured income inequality, CEO pay, why nations grow or stay poor, the role of intellectuals and experts in designing public policy, and immigration.’
Listen to it here.
Or read this recent Wall Street Journal interview with Mr. Sowell:
Q: What’s an example of a fallacy from your book?
A: One is the income gap between rich and poor. It’s maddening to me to keep hearing how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and so on. The fundamental difference is the difference between talking about abstract statistical categories and talking about flesh-and-blood human beings. Since the book came out, for example, there’s been a study released by the Treasury Department based on income tax returns. There, they are talking about following the same human beings over a span of years, which is wholly different from following income brackets over a span of years, because in all the brackets more than half the people change in the course of a decade. So what happens to a bracket is an abstract question; what happens to the flesh-and-blood human beings is different.
