Cars not only last longer, they are cheaper and safer to run.
Charts showing there’s never been a better time to own a car
06 Mar 2015 Leave a comment
in population economics, technological progress, transport economics Tags: the good old days, The Great Enrichment
Everybody is seriously richer because of post-war capitalism
22 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, liberalism Tags: capitalism and freedom, The Great Enrichment, The Great Fact
Figure 1: Growth in real average income for the bottom 90%
Source: voxeu.org
By the way, in the countries where growth in real average incomes appears to have flattened out, is it seriously suggested that middle-class families cannot buy a basket of goods of superior quality and quantity than they could 30 or 40 years ago?
The Great Enrichment since 1979 in the USA
22 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in income redistribution, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: capitalism and freedom, poverty and inequality, The Great Enrichment, top 1%
Over the past one-, two-, and three-decade periods, both middle class and poor households have experienced noticeable gains in living standards. Their gains are slower than those experienced by middle-income families in the earlier post-war era, but the gains are well above zero.
In 1980, in-kind benefits and employer and government spending on health insurance accounted for just 6% of the after-tax incomes of households in the middle one-fifth of the distribution. By 2010 these in-kind income sources represented 17% of middle class households’ after-tax income
…The broadest and most accurate measures of household income are published by the CBO. CBO’s newest estimates confirm the long-term trend toward greater inequality, driven mainly by turbo-charged gains in market income at the very top of the distribution. The market incomes of the top 1% are extraordinarily cyclical, however. They soar in economic expansions and plunge in recessions. Income changes since 2007 fit this pattern.
What many observers miss, however, is the success of the nation’s tax and transfer systems in protecting low- and middle-income Americans against the full effects of a depressed economy.
via Gary Burtless
Charts showing everyone is seriously richer after-taxes
19 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in income redistribution, labour economics, poverty and inequality Tags: The Great Enrichment, top 1%
Everyone is 30-50% richer.
![Microsoft PowerPoint - Group C Federal Budget (KF).pptx [Read-Only]](https://utopiayouarestandinginit.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/0014_taxes-income-full.gif "Microsoft PowerPoint - Group C Federal Budget (KF).pptx [Read-Only]")
Ordinary Americans do not pay much in taxes.
Low income Americans receive large amounts of government transfers and increases their income by at least 50%
The middle-class is getting seriously smaller because more of them are getting richer
Economics as Incredulity : Working conditions during the Industrial Revolution
16 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
The greatest achievement in human history
15 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
The World Bank reported on Oct. 9 that the share of the world population living in extreme poverty had fallen to 15% in 2011 from 36% in 1990. Earlier this year, the International Labor Office reported that the number of workers in the world earning less than $1.25 a day has fallen to 375 million 2013 from 811 million in 1991.
Such stunning news seems to have escaped public notice, but it means something extraordinary: The past 25 years have witnessed the greatest reduction in global poverty in the history of the world.
To what should this be attributed? Official organizations noting the trend have tended to waffle, but let’s be blunt: The credit goes to the spread of capitalism. Over the past few decades, developing countries have embraced economic-policy reforms that have cleared the way for private enterprise.
The reduction in world poverty has attracted little attention because it runs against the narrative pushed by those hostile to capitalism. The Michael Moores of the world portray capitalism as a degrading system in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Yet thanks to growth in the developing world, world-wide income inequality—measured across countries and individual people—is falling, not rising, as Branco Milanovic of City University of New York and other researchers have shown.
Capitalism’s bad rap grew out of a false analogy that linked the term with “exploitation.” Marxists thought the old economic system in which landlords exploited peasants (feudalism) was being replaced by a new economic system in which capital owners exploited industrial workers (capitalism). But Adam Smith had earlier provided a more accurate description of the economy: a “commercial society.” The poorest parts of the world are precisely those that are cut off from the world of markets and commerce, often because of government policies.
Douglas Irwin
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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