Categories:
Income Distribution
Upcoming Events
I will be speaking on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. at Webber International University, Babson Park, Florida.
Topic: Economic Inequality: Popular Misunderstandings and Important Facts
Place: Yentes Conference Center
1201 N Scenic Hwy
Babson Park, FL 33827
If you’re an EconLog reader and you show up, please come up to say hi before or after the talk.
Here’s Webber’s announcement.
READER COMMENTS
john hare
Feb 23 2018 at 7:24am
It was good to meet Dr Henderson in person at the lecture. It took me until this morning to realize one of the points where I am not connected to the regular econlog readers and the audience at Webber.
I normally deal with people one on one and can gauge from instant reactions as to my next statement. Group dynamics are different in auditorium. I am used to dealing with people that are near or recently from the actual bottom quintile. People that have had to decide whether to buy gasoline or pay the light bill. Groceries or rent type weighty decisions. Though there was no poll, I had the impression that few if any of the audience would have understood that type of decision. There were a few questions that I ask that I wonder the relevance to the college audience Dr Henderson was addressing.
How does inequality damage you personally?
How does my money prevent you from moving forward to your aspirations? How does the existence of inequality prevent anyone else from improving their lives?
In response to a question after the lecture, How does the envy industry in this country affect happiness compared to the high tax countries that seem to be happier? IOW, how many are unhappy because they are convinced to be unhappy rather than real world causes?
I mistakenly took a seat at the front of the room when it would have been better to take one nearer the back in order to watch audience reaction. I noticed one person had a problem with the chainsaw wealth gain, and that a few had no problem with the Johnson wealth gain. I would have liked to get a better look at the expressions and attitudes as these and other examples were brought up.
David R Henderson
Feb 25 2018 at 12:03pm
@john hare,
It was good to meet Dr Henderson in person at the lecture.
Ditto, John. Thanks for our conversation before and after.
I mistakenly took a seat at the front of the room when it would have been better to take one nearer the back in order to watch audience reaction. I noticed one person had a problem with the chainsaw wealth gain, and that a few had no problem with the Johnson wealth gain. I would have liked to get a better look at the expressions and attitudes as these and other examples were brought up.
My rough estimate is that approximately 40 people did not raise their hand on the “is-McCulloch’s-wealth-legitimate?” question, but of the 45 or so who did, I would estimate 42 saying yes and 3 saying no. On the “is-LBJ’s-way-of acquiring wealth legitimate?” question, I would estimate that at least 45 people didn’t raise their hands but of those who did, 35 thought it was illegitimate and 5 thought it was legitimate.
Comments are closed.