Hacker News Reader

Comment by whimsicalism | Hacker News Reader

I hear what you are saying, although I would prefer an engagement on the merits of the specific points.

That said, it is of course possible I overstated my case - the provenance of sources I am finding is not as strong as I would have expected.

View on HN

The thrust of the article [1] is that the income defined as "Poverty Level" (60% of disposable income), is higher in the US than in many European countries. This definition is based on disposable income, which does not account for spending on childcare, healthcare, housing, etc., many of which are heavily subsidized, or simply less expensive in these European countries that are being compared to the United States.

[1] https://mises.org/wire/poor-us-are-richer-middle-class-much-...

Note: I appreciate your calm responses and engagement of the arguments. I concede that I should have included some refutation or concession based on the merits of the article themselves in my original reply.

Edit: to add another source refuting the Mises thesis, stating that income inequality is highest in the US among G-7 countries (https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-...)

I feel that attacking the credibility of a source is fair game. I don't expect someone to refute every single point of an argument if the central thesis of the argument is erroneous.

How did we jump from attacking the credibility of a source to the central thesis of the argument being erroneous? I'm missing the part where that was shown.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com