Inequality and Inequality

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Powerline tries to catch liberals in a “trap”, it seems:

[The] latest discussion of inequality is a sure sign that the economy is doing well. No longer able to talk about a recession or a jobless recovery, the left now resorts, as it did during the prosperous Reagan years, to income inequality.

Um, but the whole point of talking about income inequality is that the economy is not “prosperous,” because it’s not prosperous for all. At any rate, people often seem to talk about two different things with regards to income inequality. One, it could be the case that all income groups are doing well, but the rich just happen to be doing astronomically well. Now I happen to think that that sort of inequality may well pose real problems and inflict real costs on society, but this debate admittedly gets pretty complex, and defenders can say at least the rising tide is lifting all boats. On the other hand, it could be the case that only the wealthy are doing well, and everyone else is worse off—the rising tide swamping all boats. In a lot of ways, that’s the sort of inequality we have today: real wages for workers have been falling during the “Bush recovery,” as they did during the Reagan years, and that’s a massive, massive problem, irrespective of how well the top tax brackets are doing.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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