TIMOTHY NOAH APRIL 17, 2012
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I woke up this morning seized with an uncontrollable urge to post Bloomsbury's video of me discussing The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis And What We Can Do About It, on my blog. Please don't judge me. I will henceforth confine overt marketing of the book--latest favorable reviews, upcoming book appearances, etc.--to my Web site, timothynoah.com (now available on mobile devices! and soon to carry an RSS feed of this blog, if I can figure out how to do that). The Great Divergence will be in stores on April 24.
While we're on the subject of income inequality, the New York Times today celebrates tax day with an excellent Page One profile by Annie Lowrey of economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, reigning rock stars of Inequality Studies. (It was Piketty and Saez who introduced the "one percent" and "99 percent" findings undergirding the Occupy movement.) If Lowrey's piece leaves you wanting to wage class cyberwarfare, check out Piketty and Saez's World Top Incomes Database, a peerless resource on income inequality around the globe now current for the United States through 2010. Or you can read the latest version of Saez's "Striking It Richer" (Cliff'sNotes version of Saez and Piketty's groundbreaking 2003 paper for the Quarterly Journal of Economics), also updated to 2010. Money quote: "The top 1% captured 93% of the income gains in the first year of recovery [i.e., 2010]."
Welcome to the members-only economic recovery. Please present proof at the door that your family income exceeds $352,000. All others will be turned away.
5 comments
Wow, us 99% must be really lazy underachievers to warrant 7% of income gains in 2010. The makes me want to work so hard! < / snark >
- GSpinks
April 17, 2012 at 1:47pm
Congratulations again, Timothy, for all the attention you are getting for your book. If you don't toot your own horn, probably no one else will. Reading your post caused me to recall a term that I hadn't thought of in a long while. In the mid-1980s, a friend who taught university-level history courses back then put me on to the late philosopher, Walter Kaufmann. Kaufmann coined the term "humbition," in Faith of a Heretic, I believe, meaning a combination of humility and ambition. I have always have liked this concept sine I came upon it but I also have thought the term to be awkward. I think that you represent humbition at its best. I am cringing at the thought that you might be assailed by the mushers for your "narcissism," but upon further reflection, you are probably safe because your book comports with their ideological leanings. Pretty much all is forgiven when the ideological stars align properly.
- liberalref
April 17, 2012 at 1:50pm
Wow, I never realized that you were black until I saw this video (or at least can pass for one)
- blackton
April 17, 2012 at 2:46pm
Thanks, liberaref, for your encouragement!
- Timothy Noah
April 17, 2012 at 6:21pm
Are you serious, blackton? TN doesn't look black at all. Is that some kind of weird joke?
- AaronW
April 18, 2012 at 9:01am