Obama Says Income Gap Is Fraying U.S. Social Fabric | Hacker News Reader

Obama Says Income Gap Is Fraying U.S. Social Fabric

nytimes.com

22 pointsgeorgebonnr24 comments

I'm not listening to this politician tell me what my values are or what it means to be an American until he stops tracking my phone calls, watching my email account, photographing my snail mail and examining my bank and credit card statements. If he can't stop making obvious mistakes, how can he possibly think he is going to "fix" something as complex and subtle as the economy. This is pure politics from someone who knowns nothing else.

Edit: Sorry if this seems harsh but I'm having a hard time taking this guys bullshit anymore. Is there any substance in this new focus on the economy or is it just a way to change the subject.

How is this guys bullshit any different from the last guys bullshit?

The tracking of phone calls and internet started long before Obama stepped into office.

He has been worst of US presidents.

PS: I am calculating worst as "Mahalanobis distance" between promises and actions.

Obama = wolf in sheep's clothing

Obamacare and the growth of part-time jobs

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/07...

Obamacare Call Center Hiring Part-Time Workers, Not Providing Healthcare

http://www.inquisitr.com/872846/obamacare-call-center-employ...

Will Obamacare Hurt Jobs? It's Already Happening, Poll Finds

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100825782

McDonald’s CFO Sees Up to $420M in New Health-Care Costs Due to Obamacare

http://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2012/07/23/mcdonalds-cfo-sees-up-to...

Restaurant chain experiments with more part-time work to avoid Obamacare costs

http://leanforward.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/10/14342234-resta...

I get your point (sort of), but your take on the situation seems sensational to the point of being self-defeating.

>“And that’s what’s been eroding over the last 20, 30 years, well before the financial crisis,” he added.

Is he still blaming Bush for what are unarguably, by this point, his problems?

>The economy is “far stronger” than four years ago, he said, yet many people who write to him still do not feel secure about their future, even as their current situation recovers.

It seems wants to have his cake and eat it too: "I've fixed the recession, but there's still massive unemployment." I've never understood this obsession with stock markets as economic health indicators and obscuring of unemployment by calling it "underemployment" (http://www.cnbc.com/id/100870095).

Sorry, here is the bare link (shouldn't be paywalled): http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/us/politics/obama-says-inc...

I'm not sure why this submission is on HackerNews?

Many of the comments seem to be less about the article, and more about the commenter's opinion of Obama.

Yes, unfortunately. Next time maybe I don't put the word "Obama" in the actual title...

That might lower the number of visceral responses to the speaker, but I still don't see the relevance of the content, i.e. commentary on the social fabric, to HackerNews.

Thanks Obama.

It is getting a bit difficult to take the dude seriously, isn't it?

I don't know. I think history will tell, but I get the same president-y vibe as all the others. My gut is that it isn't the president (we should put anyone in there), but a toxic system of governance.

This is why I'm a huge fan of attacking the root of all problems: the confluence of money + power. Power shouldn't be bought.

Really? I feel rather let down by this guy.

I mean, he was supposed to be different. He wasn't supposed be a dude emanating the "same persident-y" vibe as everyone else. He was supposed to be about change and morality. Honestly I'm more upset at Obama than Bush because I expected the bullshit from Bush but I feel like Obama tricked an entire nation.

He didn't fool me.

What I thought might make for useful discussion was the things that were said, not so much who was saying them. What do you think about the topic?

I actually think that was a relevant (but probably unnecessarily snarky) comment.

The title says "Obama Says Income Gap Is Fraying U.S. Social Fabric" but really, how can one take an article like this seriously given the context of current events which have been unfolding around us? Yes this is an issue, and yeah it is something we should be concerned about but seriously? There was a rather momentous vote in the house a few days ago when congressmen/women broke with the ranks of their party and voted with their conscience or with their pockets.

Yes, Obama, I would agree that the US social fabric is fraying, but let's not stop there, let's admit that it's getting ripped the fuck apart. It rather infuriates me that the author writes "Mr. Obama was philosophical about historical and economic forces that he said were tearing at communities across the country". The last thing I'd like to hear is how Obama is pontificating in the White House about social ills when he stands behind the most intrusive government actions of the 21st century.

pw;dr (paywalled), other version please

Just clear your cookies or use incognito mode in your browser - no NYT paywall

Yep, cmd+shift+n works like a charm in Chrome

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/07/yes-the-middle-class-has-be...

I'm also not really sure about this article. I find the evidence in that graph not to be compelling enough for summarizing with "bottom line:" and some real clean explanation.

I find the trending cumulative percentage a little confusing to think about.

I also wondered, does this mean there is some income bracket losing people? That is, no more families making 25-75k but still as many making <25k, so the <25k have fewer slightly-above peers?

Then I wondered if maybe this means something about the <25k potentially having less income? That percentage stays flat, but those other earners are changing classification to rich... I don't really know.

After writing this up I realize that what I'd like to see is the whole income distribution. This cherry-picks certain points on the CDF and plots them over time (the income cutoffs of 25k and 75k).

What's interesting to me is whether or not we've gone from a unimodal income distribution to a bimodal one, in the sense that there's a trough between the lowest income families and the highest. If we have a 'middle class' we avoid that, and probably that is socially important.

I think this graph is better for understanding the main article, which plots the Gini coefficient for income distribution over time by country [a few, anyway]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gini_since_WWII.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

So, I'm not convinced that this is helping the situation:

- Is this data taking into number of working adults ($/house-hold)?

- What about the rising costs of living (like eating healthy)? [is this normalized based on any consumer metric of just inflation?]