Tin Shop Tartan - Randolph County Alabama's Own Snarky and Surly Scot Gets All Native

Blogging from the suburbs of the Tin Shop community, Captain Plaid brings Progressivism, and a share of Quixotic angst, to the ridges and hollows of Randolph County, Alabama. Hardly a booster yet rooted here enough to fight, Plaidsters can perhaps find like cause in trying to build local solutions to global concerns. Education, environment, economy, entertainment, engagement ... Trust the Tartan!

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Does the media ignore "The Conehead Economy"?

Ezra Klein crossposts his "The Conehead Economy" at The American Prospect's Tapped. Since I have gone after the idea of media bias recently, I'll share the following:
In the past, I've called this "The Conehead Economy" -- plenty of growth in the economic body, but all of it happening in the top percent. Were that to happen to a person, you'd see six inches of growth in their forehead and doctors everywhere would be puzzling over how to correct the deformity. As it is, the media trumpets the growth, the politicians backslap over the roaring economy, and everyone wonders why the average American seems so unhappy. Meanwhile, the media rarely mentions data showing that incomes for the bottom 60 percent have grown by merely 20 percent in the last 30 years (the top one percent saw that much growth last year) -- with nearly all those gains coming during the mid-‘90s. Indeed, this sort of economic concentration hasn't existed since 1929 -- hardly a golden period in American life.
Do the facts have an anti-conservative bias? If you suggest this trend is "supply side" or "trickle down" then I'll counter that the rising tide seems to only be lifting the yachts. We don't have too many yachts around here do we? Peace ... or War!