Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Frum GETS IT.
Amid the huge ocean of pundits and politicians who completely misunderstand the Trump thing, only two or three pundits get it. The best is Frum, writing in The Atlantic.
He pins the facts and the emotions EXACTLY. I'd only quibble with one point. The following paragraph is 'numerically' accurate, but Frum doesn't see the inappropriate use of terms......
The Great Recession ended in the summer of 2009. Since then, the U.S. economy has been growing, but most incomes have not grown comparably. In 2014, real median household income remained almost $4,000 below the pre-recession level, and well below the level in 1999. The country has recovered from the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Most of its people have not.When most incomes have not grown comparably, you can't say the economy is growing. When most people have not recovered, you can't say the country has recovered. These inappropriate terms are universal, and they show the problem perfectly. It's a question of metrology, a question of which variable we choose to measure. We no longer pay ANY attention to the condition of the people. We only measure Goldman. When Goldman is growing, the country is growing. ¶ 3:06 PM
