A person would only change his or her consumption patterns if his or her lifetime income changed, but wouldn’t change his or her spending much if he or she experienced a temporary increase or decrease in spending.First reaction: The sentence seems to be about gender politeness.
Second reaction: I'm not reading any more of that.
2 comments:
Aside from the repetition — how do you change consumption patterns on the basis of lifetime income? How can you know that number and still have time to do much spending? And if you experience a temporary increase or decrease in spending, you've already changed your spending, no?
Michael, you may not know it, but you are questioning the wisdom of Milton Friedman. Good job! If there is anyone whose wisdom needs to be questioned, it is Friedman.
Before I could reply to you I had to go back and read the Nick Bunker article that I said I wouldn't read. Once I got past the "repetition" it was more interesting than I thought.
The sentence I quoted is part of a "simplified" version of Friedman's “permanent income” hypothesis which says, as I stretch it, that it doesn't help the economy to give money to poor people. But the article looks at a new study and reports that "moving resources from the top 20 percent to the bottom 80 percent of households would boost total consumption in the economy by between 3 percent to 4 percent."
In other words, giving money to poor people DOES help the economy. ("Resources" = money)
Shame on me for poking fun at one of Nick Bunker's sentences before I figured out what he was trying to say.
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