[lbo-talk] progress

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon Mar 5 19:06:07 PST 2007


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



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