افسانه‌های ثروتمند و فقیر: چرا از آنچه فکر می‌کنیم بهتر هستیم

Popular wisdom holds that the years since 1973 -- the end of the'postwar miracle'-- have been a time of economic decline and stagnation: lackluster productivity, falling real wages, and lost competitiveness. The rich have gotten richer, the poor have gotten poorer, and most of us have barely held on while watching all the best jobs disappear overseas. As Myths of Rich and Poor demonstrates, this picture is not just wrong, it's spectacularly wrong. The hard numbers, simple facts, and iconoclastic arguments of this book will change the way you think about the American economy. Dismantling Dozens Of Firmly-held Beliefs, Cox And Alm Show That: Real Income Is An Unreliable Measure Of Living Standards. Real Wealth - The Lifestyle Americans Routinely Enjoy - Has Skyrocketed; The Poor Have Not Gotten Poorer. In Fact, The Average Family Living Below The Poverty Line Today Is Doing As Well Or Better, In Terms Of Material Possessions, As Middle-class Families In 1971; Corporate Downsizing Creates Jobs In The Long Run; Income Mobility Is Alive And Well. Of People At The Bottom Fifth Of The Income Distribution In 1975, Almost 3 In 10 Were In The Top Fifth By 1991; And America's Trade Deficit Is A Sign Of Strength. We Can Afford To Import More Than We Export Because America Is Such An Attractive Haven For Overseas Investments. Pt. 1. Myths About Income And Living Standards -- Ch. 1. Waking Up To Good Times -- Ch. 2. New And Improved -- Ch. 3. Time For Symphonies And Softball -- Ch. 4. By Our Own Bootstraps -- Ch. 5. Still On Top Of The World -- Pt. 2. Myths About Jobs -- Ch. 6. Upside Of Downsizing -- Ch. 7. Somebody Always Flipped Hamburgers -- Ch. 8. Economy At Light Speed -- Ch. 9. Great American Growth Machine. W. Michael Cox, Richard Alm. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. The years since 1973 are supposed to have been a time of economic decline, or at least stagnation: lackluster productivity, falling real wages, declining competitiveness. But as this text aims to demonstrate, this picture is false. The American economy has performed astonishingly well over the past generation. The problem is in how we measure it. If you can tear yourself away from unreliable measures such as inflation and real wages, and look instead at actual wealth, the material goods and services we can buy with our money, we are doing better on almost all counts. We have more cars, our houses are bigger, we travel more than ever before. The cost in work hours of most products is falling steadily, even as quality improves, and the varieties of goods available to us have never been greater. Only by understanding the great success of the American economy, Cox and Alm argue, can we make intelligent decisions that will preserve that success Popular wisdom holds that the years since 1973—the end of the “postwar miracle”—have been a time of economic decline and stagnation: lackluster productivity, falling real wages, and lost competitiveness. The rich have gotten richer, the poor have gotten poorer, and most of us have barely held on while watching all the best jobs disappear overseas.As Myths of Rich and Poor demonstrates, this picture is not just wrong, it’s spectacularly wrong. The hard numbers, simple facts, and iconoclastic arguments of this book will change the way you think about the American economy. A leading economist and a top economic journalist show that contrary to conventional wisdom, America is at the peak of its economic well-being, with more opportunity for more people than at any other time in our history. A groundbreaking and controversial new book that demonstrates the falsity in the myth that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer punctures dozens of firmly held beliefs about our economy. Tour. IN THE AMERICA OF THE 1990s, hard-luck stories weren't hard to find.