My daughter Hannah on the complexity of Iran

I wouldn't push the proud father thing if I didn't think she was good.

Green: Iranian film creatively bends censorship rules - Forum - The Daily Northwestern - Northwestern University#.Tyhotk9I4rw

Good news and bad news on race and housing

Ed Glaeser and Jake Vigdor find that all-white neighborhoods are a thing of the past.  They find:

• The most standard segregation measure shows that american cities are now more integrated than they’ve been since 1910. Segregation rose dramatically with black migration to cities in the mid-twentieth century. On average, this rise has been entirely erased by integration since the 1960s.
• All-white neighborhoods are effectively extinct. A half-century ago, one-fifth of America’s urban neighborhoods had exactly zero black residents. Today, African-American residents can be found in 199 out of every 200 neighborhoods nationwide. The remaining neighborhoods are mostly in remote rural areas or in cities with very little black population.
• Gentrification and immigration have made a dent in segregation. While these phenomena are clearly important in some areas, the rise of black suburbanization explains much more of the decline in segregation.
• Ghetto neighborhoods persist, but most are in decline. For every diversifying ghetto neighborhood, many more house a dwindling population of black residents.

That said, Andy Reschovsky sends me to the most recent US Census Homeownership and Vacancy Report, which shows the ration of black to white ownership rates fell from .643 in 2006 to .617 in 2011; for hispanics, the fall was from .651 to .632.

Better graph with more recent data

In comments, a complaint was lodged that I used a graph with a linear y-axis for demonstrating change in income over the past 40 years.  The problem with such a graph is that if everyone has the same percentage income growth, the slope for high income earners will still look higher.

So here is a graph where the y-axis is logarithmic.  It also contains more recent data:

The point doesn't change: from 1969 until 2010, income at the top of the bottom quintile essentially hasn't moved (it changed from 26,289 to 26,685).  Income at the bottom of the top five percent has moved quite a lot (from 121,516 to 200,354) .
  

A modest proposal for tax reform

Let's just start by designing a code that requires that as adjusted gross income rises, the effective tax rate may not fall.  That way taxpayers would be able to look at their own effective rate, and know that everyone with higher incomes would pay at least as high a rate.

The banal moderateness of Thomas Friedman.

In his paean to conventional wisdom this morning, the ever so serious Mr Friedman writes:

Second, I want to vote for a candidate who is committed to reforming taxes, and cutting spending, in a fair way. The rich must pay more, but everyone has to pay something. We are all in this together.

But how over the past decades have we all been in this together?   In 2007, those in the bottom quintile had the same income they had in 1998, and a bump of little more than 11 percent since 1969; those in the top five percent had seen incomes rise by 74 percent since 1969.

  Source: Alan De Smet plot of  US Census, Historical Income Tables - Families, Table F-1.


Sure, if everyone had benefitted from the policies of the past 40 years, then everyone should sacrifice now. 


But for the time being, lets begin by asking for sacrifice from those with the means to do so.

FWIW

I refinanced for the second time in the last year--the process was a little less painful.  So if one wishes to infer a trajectory, there is a fixed effect, but with no degrees of freedom. 

Immigration laws provide no benefits - Forum - The Daily Northwestern - Northwestern University#.TxXEh65feMV

Hannah Green: Immigration laws provide no benefits - Forum - The Daily Northwestern - Northwestern University#.TxXEh65feMV