92% of Americans want wealth distribution like Sweden's

[Holger Danske]

92% of Americans want wealth distribution like Sweden's

I bet around 0% of Americans truely wants Nordic taxation. It only benefits the lazy and punishes the ambitious worker.

[chilon]

So you don't care about the posts in which I systematically break down why the OP study is academically invalid, but you do care about a snippet you can cut and paste into a strawman argument for whatever purpose. Interesting....

Let's see, in your first post you start by dismissing the study as "political fodder" and "academic trolling" without ever providing any evidence or anything really to back up that accusation.

Then you mock the others as "scholars" and imply there is a conflict of interest while providing no evidence of such.

Then you strawman the study by claiming its just as academically invalid as some imaginary study you make up.

So thats 0 for 3 for you and coming off as very politically biased with an agenda but no actual evidence.

If I were to find a study claiming the "average American" would prefer to live in an anarcho-capitalist system based on the sort of methodology used in the OP study, I would summarily reject it as academically invalid for the same reasons I've laid out, and we'd be right back where we are now. Hence the example, hence my point. The OP study is, as you put it, an "imaginary study" academically speaking because it utterly lacks scientific process of argumentation and also apparently "imagined" the data used to begin with. I basically presented an example of a counterfeit bill and how to tell that it's counterfeit, and you respond by demanding I prove the bill's authenticity. If such a facile ploy amuses you that much, by all means, continue.

Which is a strawman because the original study does not lack anything academically. It sets out to answer two pretty innocuous questions. What wealth distribution would people prefer in an ideal world? And what is their estimate of the actual wealth distribution in the USA.
In answering those two questions the study is perfectly valid.

The problem is you seem to assume the study is claiming more than it actually is. You seem to assume this because you say things like "cradle to grave daycare" which is a comment completely unrelated to the actual study. You are the one making assumptions that because the study shows that people prefer a Swedish level of wealth distribution that somehow maps to people preferring everything else about the Swedish system.

That is why you are strawmanning the article and not even coming close to systematically proving it is academically invalid.

Maybe you think counts as your "systematic breakdown":

Observe
The authors' observations and data were substantively cast into doubt by a counterexample posted by another user.

Incorrect. There is no valid counterexample and the authors simply surveyed a representative sample of thousands of people. So you are wrong. The data has not been questioned or invalidated in any way.

Hypothesize
The authors do have a hypothesis....of sorts

They set out to answer two very clear and succinct questions.
1. What wealth distribution would people prefer?
2. What do people estimate the wealth inequality in the USA is right now?

Test

The authors' test fails to establish any testable or repeatable link between the hypothesis and the conclusion, as I demonstrated.

Incorrect again. The authors set to test what people's preferred wealth distribution was and they study shows exactly that. You demonstrated nothing on this.

Conclude

The author's conclusions have little to do with the test conducted, and are highly speculative, to say the least.

Again incorrect. The authors concluded that if given the choice people would prefer wealth distribution more similar to Sweden than the US and their study shows exactly that and nothing else...well except that most people also have an incorrect idea of what the wealth distribution in the USA actually is.

So your "systematic break down" is a complete failure. You have actually proved literally zero about the initial study.

It is analogous to the methodology of the OP study for reasons I laid out. You claiming it isn't and demanding that I engage your strawman argument isn't getting us anywhere. Moreover, the analogies I've used (of which you've curiously only selected one) are an illustration of why the methodology of the OP study is flawed, not the reason why it is flawed. I already laid out those reasons in a few posts now. But you "could care less" about those reasons so that leaves us with a "direct quote" you keep harping on. Yes, I know you've cut and paste a "direct quote" of mine and subsequently strawmanned it for all its worth. If such a phenomenon were all that uncommon the Mudpit would not exist.

You have not established that your imaginary study is the same methodology because you keep strawmanning the original study.

Granted, your average CEO perhaps deserves the money a lot more than some Hollywood actor who just has to remember some lines and BOOM he's a guaranteed millionaire.

Why does the "Average CEO" "deserve" more money than a Hollywood actor?

[Roma_Victrix]

Why does the "Average CEO" "deserve" more money than a Hollywood actor?

Good question. Just for the record, I don't think CEOs should be paid 300 to 400 times the salary of any of their subordinate employees, and that standards for CEO salaries back in the 1960s was much more fair than it is today. It's one of the major reasons I started this thread.

That being said, what does an actor do? Yes, I know, it takes some training to act well, but so what? I know that big blockbuster movies these days make over a billion dollars, but does that warrant so much money going to the actors? Of course, they will refuse to act in a movie without a considerable cut of the money, and that's largely the reason they are so damn wealthy. The same goes for other types of entertainers like top-billed pop singers. They do a lot of traveling, that is true, but come on, their work isn't THAT strenuous. They're not saving lives like surgeons and physicians. And I heavily doubt that an actor's work load of remembering lines even approaches the amount of hours a CEO has to commit to running a company. And that's after the years of experience he or she had to gain first, including proper schooling and at least an MBA degree under their belt. A ing actor just has to remember some lines, maybe put some flair on it, a little passion and intensity in their voice and their look, and WHAM! They become millionaires overnight. Most of them don't even do their own stunts. Hell, stuntmen risk a lot more, they should be paid more!

If anything the directors, writers, and key people producing the film should receive a much larger slice of the pie in movies' revenues, at the expense of the actors in the films. Of course this will never happen, because they have the Screen Actors Guild. I think we should go back to the days of the Roman Republic, when acting was a lowly profession, where members of the senatorial class were barred from pursuing an acting career because it was shameful. Or hell, not even that far back, how about Elizabethan England? Shakespeare's actors weren't exactly high society types either. Actors should learn their place, because they belong at the bottom of the social ladder.

The only actors I excuse from that are those who bother to pay a significant part of their salary to philanthropic endeavors, such as charities for kids or cancer. At least then their undeserved money is put to good use, instead of on frivolous stuff like 15 homes (including castles), private islands, luxury yachts, sports cars, and a private jet like Nicholas Cage bought.. Of course, that was before he went bankrupt.

[Phier]

So basically you have decided the going rate for various professions and thats why you started the thread

Actors get paid a ton, because for some reason, people latch onto them and it makes the movie more money, so they are worth the investment.

CEO's get paid, because they should make the company more money. Why would publicly traded companies do it if it didn't have merit?

Now some fail, and fail spectacularly but thats the risk in a hire in life. I've made mistakes in hiring which cost me 1000's, big companies can do the same and cost them millions, but its the risk of doing business. Just like big name actors can do horrible bad movies (Oh the bees!), and big name athletes can be awful (I'm looking at you Adam Dunn).

Ben and Jerrys back in the day tried to cap their compensation on the high end, it didn't work out and they gave it up years ago.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Which is a strawman because the original study does not lack anything academically. It sets out to answer two pretty innocuous questions. What wealth distribution would people prefer in an ideal world? And what is their estimate of the actual wealth distribution in the USA.
In answering those two questions the study is perfectly valid.

The problem is you seem to assume the study is claiming more than it actually is. You seem to assume this because you say things like "cradle to grave daycare" which is a comment completely unrelated to the actual study. You are the one making assumptions that because the study shows that people prefer a Swedish level of wealth distribution that somehow maps to people preferring everything else about the Swedish system.

Aaaand here we go again repeating ourselves some more

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Americans Prefer Sweden

For the first task, we created three unlabeled pie charts of
wealth distributions, one of which depicted a perfectly equal
distribution of wealth. Unbeknownst to respondents, a second
distribution reflected the wealth distribution in the United
States; in order to create a distribution with a level of inequality
that clearly fell in between these two charts, we constructed
a third pie chart from the income distribution of Sweden
(Fig. 1).
2
We presented respondents with the three pairwise
combinations of these pie charts (in random order) and asked
them to choose which nation they would rather join given a
‘‘Rawls constraint’’ for determining a just society (Rawls,
1971): ‘‘In considering this question, imagine that if you joined

this nation, you would be randomly assigned to a place in the

distribution, so you could end up anywhere in this distribution,
from the very richest to the very poorest.’’
….......................



). In addition, there was a slight preference
for the distribution that resembled Sweden relative to the
equal distribution, suggestin
g that Americans prefer some
inequality to perfect equality, but not to the degree currently

present in the United States.

Overall, these results demons trate two primary messages. First, a large nationally repres entativesampleofAmericans seems to prefer to live in a country more like Sweden than like the United States. Americans also construct ideal distributions that are far more equal than they estimated the United States to be—estimates which themselves were far more equal than the actual level of inequality.

So right off the bat, the heading is, "Americans prefer Sweden." How quaint. Of course the authors go on to say they mean "prefer the wealth distribution of Sweden," but also that Americans want to live in a country "more like Sweden." Why Sweden? The authors don't say exactly, only that Sweden's income distribution is more "equitable." As it turns out, the authors may not have even gotten their numbers right on Swedish distribution, an error that would invalidate the entire study on its own if in fact true.

But it gets better. How does one go about rearranging wealth distribtuion? By redistributing it of course. And Sweden did that largely through tight labor and commercial regulations, not to mention heavy taxation. If one wishes to be "like Sweden," one must do as Sweden does. Who doesn't want a more equitable wealth distribution since apparently wealth inequality is "bad" for some reason? I also want free ice cream, a hot girlfriend, and a million dollars a year tax-free for the rest of my days. No one needs to conduct a national survey to figure that out. As I mentioned in my first post, getting there is what counts, not wanting the end result. The authors more or less acknowledge that fact:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

We hasten to add, however, that our use of ‘‘normative’ ’ is in a descriptive sense— reflecting the fact that American s agree on the ideal distribu- tion—but not necessarily in a p rescriptive sense. Although some evidence suggests that eco nomic inequality is associ- ated with decreased well-bein g and health (Napier & Jost, 2008; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009 ), creating a society with the precise level of inequality that our respondents report as ideal may not be optimal from an economic or public policy per- spective (Krueger, 2004). Given the consensus among disparate groups on the gap between an ideal distribution of wealth and the actual level of wealth inequality, why are more Americans, especially those with low income, not advocating for greater redistribution of wealth?

So the authors are confronted with two problems. Americans seem to want the unicorn in a "normative" sense, but the authors admit that actually chasing the unicorn might be "less than optimal" economically and that most Americans probably wouldn't vote to pursue it anyway. So the authors conveniently speculate a nice caveat to explain why things aren't lining up the way they wanted:

First, our results demonstrate that Americans appear to drastically underestimate the current level of wealth inequal- ity, suggesting they may simply be unaware of the gap. Second, just as people have erroneous beliefs about the actual level of wealth inequality, they may also hold overly optimistic beliefs about opportunities for social mobility in the United States (Benabou & Ok, 2001; Charles & Hurst, 2003; Keister, 2005), beliefs which in turn may drive support for unequal dis- tributions of wealth. Third, despite the fact that conservatives and liberals in our sample agree that the current level of inequality is far from ideal, public disagreements about the causes of that inequality may drown out this consensus (Alesina & Angeletos, 2005; Piketty, 1995). Finally, and more broadly, Americans exhibit a general disconnect between their attitudes toward economic inequality and their self-interest and public policy preferences (Bartels, 2005; Fong, 2001), suggesting that even given increased awareness of the gap between ideal and actual wealth distributions, Americans may remain unlikely to advocate for policies that would narrow this gap.

Americans are just too dumb to know what's good for them.

So even before getting into the statistical integrity of the methodology, the study appears to be nothing but hot air held together by numerous assumptions of the authors in regards to the causality of the variables. But then, I've already been through all this, much of it in my first post, and other users have said as much in far, far fewer words than I. The faulty methodology is what finishes this flop of a study:

Observe
The authors' observations and data were substantively cast into doubt by a counterexample posted by another user.
Hypothesize
The authors do have a hypothesis....of sorts
Test
The authors' test fails to establish any testable or repeatable link between the hypothesis and the conclusion, as I demonstrated.
Conclude
The author's conclusions have little to do with the test conducted, and are highly speculative, to say the least.

Incorrect. There is no valid counterexample and the authors simply surveyed a representative sample of thousands of people. So you are wrong. The data has not been questioned or invalidated in any way.

You may want to check this post. Which is why I've repeatedly said that if in fact true, the allegations presented would invalidate the initial observations of the OP study.

They set out to answer two very clear and succinct questions.
1. What wealth distribution would people prefer?
2. What do people estimate the wealth inequality in the USA is right now?

Which is why I never disputed this, save to question its relevance juxtaposed with the disconnects between the test and conclusion. By the end the reader realizes the authors actually want to talk about the US versus Sweden, not what wealth distribution people prefer.

Incorrect again. The authors set to test what people's preferred wealth distribution was and they study shows exactly that. You demonstrated nothing on this.

No. The authors asked people what they thought the "ideal wealth distribution" would be, but then proceeded to flash some pie charts around and draw conclusions. There is no evidence that people selected one pie chart over the other because they actually preferred X wealth distribution, only that they selected a certain pie chart. The pie chart could have been chosen for aesthetics, or at random, or on some spur of emotion....who knows. Especially since a whopping 43% of participants chose the "Equal" pie chart - a fact the authors quickly brush past in their headlong rush to conclude that Americans want to be "like Sweden." If the pie charts are truly representative of the "average American's" views on income distribution, that would mean nearly half of the country wants everyone to have the exact same amount of money and assets. Say what? If the point of the study is to talk about which wealth distribution people prefer, why isn't this addressed beyond a quick "well yeah, but..." by the authors?

Again incorrect. The authors concluded that if given the choice people would prefer wealth distribution more similar to Sweden than the US and their study shows exactly that and nothing else...well except that most people also have an incorrect idea of what the wealth distribution in the USA actually is.

The authors concluded that Americans want to live in a country "more like Sweden" because the alleged Swedish distribution beat out the "Equal" distribution by 4 percentage points (and only 2 if you go by the Equal versus Sweden metric). Not only is that statistically a very, very weak correlation (which may very well be why the authors chose to focus on the Sweden versus US dynamic and largely ignore the aggregate results), but we have the additional problem that the test doesn't actually prove what the authors say it does.

But even ignoring that mountain of issues, let's suppose Americans want to live in a country more like Sweden, and don't really want to do anything other than want it. Even if you want to ignore the fact that the observations are questionable, the test doesn't definitively link the hypothesis with the conclusion, and the conclusion is highly ambitious and dismissive of a huge portion of the data, where does that leave us? The revelation (one that reeks of potential confirmation bias) that most Americans want more money but don't actually want to do anything about it?

Thus, as I said, I could easily use the same shoddy methods to "prove" that people can "want" just about anything. But then, this is what, our 5th round of going over this?

[chilon]

Aaaand here we go again repeating ourselves some more

So right off the bat, the heading is, "Americans prefer Sweden." How quaint. Of course the authors go on to say they mean "prefer the wealth distribution of Sweden," but also that Americans want to live in a country "more like Sweden." Why Sweden? The authors don't say exactly, only that Sweden's income distribution is more "equitable." As it turns out, the authors may not have even gotten their numbers right on Swedish distribution, an error that would invalidate the entire study on its own if in fact true.

The point is obviously that the study shows people prefer wealth distribution much closer to Sweden (even if you claim they got their numbers wrong doesn't invalidate anything) than even remotely similar to what it is in the US. So nothing claimed was incorrect. The study does indeed show that people prefer wealth distribution more akin to Sweden than the USA distribution OR a perfectly equal distribution.

But it gets better. How does one go about rearranging wealth distribtuion? By redistributing it of course. And Sweden did that largely through tight labor and commercial regulations, not to mention heavy taxation. If one wishes to be "like Sweden," one must do as Sweden does. Who doesn't want a more equitable wealth distribution since apparently wealth inequality is "bad" for some reason? I also want free ice cream, a hot girlfriend, and a million dollars a year tax-free for the rest of my days. No one needs to conduct a national survey to figure that out. As I mentioned in my first post, getting there is what counts, not wanting the end result. The authors more or less acknowledge that fact

Here you are going well beyond anything the authors are claiming. I acknowledged in my first post that obviously the study doesn't take into account people's preferences for different means of getting there.

So this is you basically making assumptions the study never made.

:

Americans are just too dumb to know what's good for them.

Again this is your, twisted interpretation. There are plenty of studies however that show that people do not vote based purely on economic self-interest so not sure how their conclusion is anything outrageous here.

You may want to check this post. Which is why I've repeatedly said that if in fact true, the allegations presented would invalidate the initial observations of the OP study.

That post only discussed whether the actual Swedish distribution was correct.

Lets assume the numbers on Sweden are incorrect. That actually doesn't invalidate anything in the original study. You are correct that it would make the statement of "more like Sweden" a bit incorrect but it certainly doesn't invalidate the preferred wealth distribution or the actual data of the study which shows that people prefer wealth distribution more like what was listed as Sweden to either the current US model or a completely equal model.

Which is why I never disputed this, save to question its relevance juxtaposed with the disconnects between the test and conclusion. By the end the reader realizes the authors actually want to talk about the US versus Sweden, not what wealth distribution people prefer.

That seems to be your personal subjective interpretation.

The authors asked people what they thought the "ideal wealth distribution" would be, but then proceeded to flash some pie charts around and draw conclusions. There is no evidence that people selected one pie chart over the other because they actually preferred X wealth distribution, only that they selected a certain pie chart. The pie chart could have been chosen for aesthetics, or at random, or on some spur of emotion....who knows.

So you are claiming that people were not actually picking the wealth distribution they prefer even though that is made abundantly clear to the participants of the study but they are just picking on aesthetics?

Any evidence supporting this claim?

Certainly seems like you are grasping for straws by now implying that non of the participants were actually picking what they viewed as wealth distribution.

Especially since a whopping 43% of participants chose the "Equal" pie chart - a fact the authors quickly brush past in their headlong rush to conclude that Americans want to be "like Sweden." If the pie charts are truly representative of the "average American's" views on income distribution, that would mean nearly half of the country wants everyone to have the exact same amount of money and assets. Say what? If the point of the study is to talk about which wealth distribution people prefer, why isn't this addressed beyond a quick "well yeah, but..." by the authors?

Not really sure why you have such an issue of them not delving more into this. Seems to me that they would be getting far more accusations of bias if they focused on that 43% that picked equal.

Also not sure why you think 43% of people preferring equal distribution is such a whopper. If you look at the current US distribution of wealth there are definitely 43% who would instantly have a better lot in life if distribution was equal and based on the questions they asked "‘‘In considering this question, imagine that if you joined this nation, you would be randomly assigned to a place in the distribution, so you could end up anywhere in this distribution" it is quite logical and quite in line with individual incentives for 43% of the population to believe they would be better off in a nation with equal distribution.

Again, if you doubt these numbers lets see a counter study?

The authors concluded that Americans want to live in a country "more like Sweden" because the alleged Swedish distribution beat out the "Equal" distribution by 4 percentage points (and only 2 if you go by the Equal versus Sweden metric). Not only is that statistically a very, very weak correlation (which may very well be why the authors chose to focus on the Sweden versus US dynamic and largely ignore the aggregate results), but we have the additional problem that the test doesn't actually prove what the authors say it does.

Actually if 47% prefer the Swedish Distribution and 43% prefer perfectly equal distribution then it is quite accurate to conclude people want to live in a country "more like Sweden" because the people preferring perfectly equal distribution still prefer a distribution closer to Swedish distribution than the US distribution.

So basically the only valid academic critique you have made is claiming that saying "Americans Prefer Sweden" is not as accurate as if they made their sub-header "Amerians Prefer Wealth Distribution Closer to Sweden than the Current US Distribution".

[Lord Thesaurian]

The point is obviously that the study shows people prefer wealth distribution much closer to Sweden (even if you claim they got their numbers wrong doesn't invalidate anything) than even remotely similar to what it is in the US. So nothing claimed was incorrect. The study does indeed show that people prefer wealth distribution more akin to Sweden than the USA distribution OR a perfectly equal distribution.

A correlation that was weak at best and left largely unproven statistically. The data was presented, and and the authors then assigned their own presumed causes to everything with hardly a caveat of a justification while ignoring a glaring portion of their own data. I should think social scientists, especially those hailing from the illustrious Ivy League, should know better than that. Period.

Here you are going well beyond anything the authors are claiming. I acknowledged in my first post that obviously the study doesn't take into account people's preferences for different means of getting there.

So this is you basically making assumptions the study never made.

I quoted the study directly, so you're clearly out of rope here. The authors clearly note that means matter and thus they have to come up with a reason why Americans seem to want equitable wealth redistribution but don't really want to redistribute wealth. They spend an entire half a page or better talking about that very quandary. Those are the authors' observations, not mine, plain and simple.

Again this is your, twisted interpretation. There are plenty of studies however that show that people do not vote based purely on economic self-interest so not sure how their conclusion is anything outrageous here.

That's the authors' interpretation, not mine. According to the study, Americans seem to want equitable wealth redistribution but don't really want to redistribute wealth. The authors' therefore blame this phenomenon on popular "ignorance" of relevant realities. Once again, their words, not mine.

That post only discussed whether the actual Swedish distribution was correct.

Lets assume the numbers on Sweden are incorrect. That actually doesn't invalidate anything in the original study. You are correct that it would make the statement of "more like Sweden" a bit incorrect but it certainly doesn't invalidate the preferred wealth distribution or the actual data of the study which shows that people prefer wealth distribution more like what was listed as Sweden to either the current US model or a completely equal model.

Jesus. If the Swedish distribution is incorrect, participants would not be choosing between Sweden, Equality and the US, but rather between the US, Equality, and Random Pie Chart #3. Therefore the conclusion that "Americans prefer Sweden" would be entirely invalid since what was listed as Sweden wouldn't even be Sweden.

That seems to be your personal subjective interpretation.

I've done nothing here but quote the study and analyze its methodology from the very beginning. Thus its no wonder that the best you can do to try and attack me is strawman my critiques into wholly separate "claims" whilst insisting I'm misrepresenting the study. The authors state and you acknowledge that the initial aim of the study is to look at what wealth distribution Americans prefer. Via a process of shoddy workmanship, the authors instead rapidly devolve into comparing the US and Sweden for some reason whilst ignoring a huge chunk of their own data. That's not my "interpretation." That's how the study is laid out. Period.

So you are claiming that people were not actually picking the wealth distribution they prefer even though that is made abundantly clear to the participants of the study but they are just picking on aesthetics?

Any evidence supporting this claim?

Certainly seems like you are grasping for straws by now implying that non of the participants were actually picking what they viewed as wealth distribution.

Sigh....here we go again. I've made no claims and need therefore to prove no claims. When scientists propose a hypothesis, they have a basic obligation to prove that hypothesis. Correlation does not equal causation, so naturally the authors assigned their own causation that happened to match the conclusion they were looking for - and barely at that. The picture gets even fuzzier when the strongest correlation is a mere 2 percentage points ahead of the next most popular option, and the next popular option gets ignored.

Actually if 47% prefer the Swedish Distribution and 43% prefer perfectly equal distribution then it is quite accurate to conclude people want to live in a country "more like Sweden" because the people preferring perfectly equal distribution still prefer a distribution closer to Swedish distribution than the US distribution.

So basically the only valid academic critique you have made is claiming that saying "Americans Prefer Sweden" is not as accurate as if they made their sub-header "Amerians Prefer Wealth Distribution Closer to Sweden than the Current US Distribution".

"Americans like Sweden compared to the US" is an entirely different from "What income distribution would Americans prefer?" Thus the fundamental disconnect between premise and conclusion, leaving the premise without argumentation and the conclusion without foundation. That's just poor scholarship, which is the alpha and omega of what I've said this entire time. Your heroic effort to spam your own personal caveats and excuses to defend the OP study whilst strawmanning me, whatever your reasons, has not will not and cannot change that. Each successive step in the OP study takes a further non-scientific leap of assumption from the last, arriving at a conclusion that is at best irrelevant and at worst a confirmation bias. Thus the study is of little or no use in an academic discussion. But it seems to me like just about everyone but you and me here has dropped the OP study and moved on, so as I said before, looks like my work here is done - now about 5-6 times over.

[chilon]

A correlation that was weak at best and left largely unproven statistically. The data was presented, and and the authors then assigned their own presumed causes to everything with hardly a caveat of a justification while ignoring a glaring portion of their own data. I should think social scientists, especially those hailing from the illustrious Ivy League, should know better than that. Period.

That is a rather biased interpretation of the study. The authors did not really "assign" their "own presumed causes" to anything. They also did not ignore a "glaring portion" of their own data if you are talking about the 43% that chose perfect equality (which you laughed at anyway). They fully acknowledged that part of the result. I am not really sure what you expected them them to do there. Loudly proclaim that 43% of Americans prefer perfect equality of wealth distribution?

I quoted the study directly, so you're clearly out of rope here. The authors clearly note that means matter and thus they have to come up with a reason why Americans seem to want equitable wealth redistribution but don't really want to redistribute wealth. They spend an entire half a page or better talking about that very quandary. Those are the authors' observations, not mine, plain and simple.

You are slanting your own interpretation in when you make silly comments like the strawman that the authors are saying "Americans are too dumb..."

That Americans vote against their economic self-interest is established. The authors mentioning that is hardly them calling Americans dumb as you implied with your comment.

Jesus. If the Swedish distribution is incorrect, participants would not be choosing between Sweden, Equality and the US, but rather between the US, Equality, and Random Pie Chart #3. Therefore the conclusion that "Americans prefer Sweden" would be entirely invalid since what was listed as Sweden wouldn't even be Sweden.

Sure. If the actual distribution they showed was not actually representative of Sweden then it wouldn't be Sweden.

But every other point still stands. The main point being that most people do not want to live in a country with wealth distribution at current levels. That main point is not affected in any way whether or not the chart is actually exactly like Sweden or not. You actually aren't critiquing the methodology of the study in any way. You are critiquing the commentary about the results.

The authors state and you acknowledge that the initial aim of the study is to look at what wealth distribution Americans prefer. Via a process of shoddy workmanship,

Well you have actually done zero to show "shoddy workmanship".

You resorted to trying to imply the participants of the study were not actually picking the wealth distribution they prefer but picking a pie chart based on aesthetics.

The only valid point you have made so far is that they placed too much bolded emphasis on the Sweden comparison.

the authors instead rapidly devolve into comparing the US and Sweden for some reason whilst ignoring a huge chunk of their own data. That's not my "interpretation."

Actually that is your own interpretation because from reading the study they have not ignored any "huge chunk" of their own data.

When scientists propose a hypothesis, they have a basic obligation to prove that hypothesis. Correlation does not equal causation,

You seem to not understand the purpose of the study. Nowhere are the others even making an argument about correlation let alone causation.

They are conducting a survey. That survey shows people prefer more equal wealth distribution than the USA currently has. Do you dispute the actual results of the study or just the way the writer wrote his sub-heads to place emphasis?

This isn't a correlation/causation issue so its bizarre for you to try to frame it that way. Its a survey. A poll.

"Americans like Sweden compared to the US" is an entirely different from "What income distribution would Americans prefer?"

Whats amusing is that you still don't even know what the study was about from your comments at least. The study deals with wealth distribution not income distribution.

[Lord Thesaurian]

@ chilon: Obviously I meant wealth distribution, not income distribution, and I believe I've used the correct terminology in all previous posts AFAIK. I expect the authors to justify their conclusions in a scientific study. They did not. Correlation//causation here has to do with the fact that the authors collect data and then make assumptions about what the data means without actually justifying it; assigning a causal rationale to the participants' choices that was neither statistically proven within any solid margin nor hardly relevant to the initial stated aim of the study, as I've explained to death by now. So failing to do anything other than repeat the same excuses, you've now resorted to claiming I simply "don't understand the study." ROFL. I don't think there is a point in discussing this further, if there ever was to begin with. Good day.

[chilon]

@ chilon: Obviously I meant wealth distribution, not income distribution, and I believe I've used the correct terminology in all previous posts AFAIK. I expect the authors to justify their conclusions in a scientific study. They did not.

The problem is you are assigning conclusions they did not actually conclude.

Correlation//causation here has to do with the fact that the authors collect data and then make assumptions about what the data means without actually justifying it;

All the authors really concluded was exactly what the study concluded: that people prefer wealth distribution more akin what they listed as Sweden than the US.

Seems to me you take offense to certain ways the interpretation is reported rather than anything in the study itself.

[pacifism]

...
So you are claiming that people were not actually picking the wealth distribution they prefer even though that is made abundantly clear to the participants of the study but they are just picking on aesthetics?

Any evidence supporting this claim?

Certainly seems like you are grasping for straws by now implying that non of the participants were actually picking what they viewed as wealth distribution.

The point isn't that most participants were secretly preferring the color scheme of one graph over the other, and then selected that one. Anyone using aesthetics as a counterexample is probably doing so as an exaggeration to highlight their point. The point is that the Americans that were polled may not, or even probably not, have been thinking about macroeconomics when they selected which country's graph they would have preferred to live in.

Given that participants were to "imagine if [they] joined this nation, [they] would be randomly assigned to a place in the distribution, so [they] could end up anywhere in this distribution, from the very richest to the very poorest", the people surveyed may have had an incentive to try to consider the probabilities of being in the rich/poor quintile and how well/poor off they would be because of it. It's possible that these people have been taking the risk of being in the poorest group more seriously than the taxes, GDP per capita, economic systems, and similarly important economic concepts on wealth distribution that each graph has.

For example: in my mind, it is more likely that 43% of test-takers actually didn't want to end in a disadvantageous wealth position than that 43% of the participants - Americans, no less - must be socialists who advocate equal wealth for all people. If that many really favored absolutely equal wealth distribution, then I am going to question what methods they used to find what "average Americans" think, since I don't believe that figure is proportional to the people who think likewise on the nation scale.

[Count of Montesano]

Maybe there's a middle road between evil communist Sweden and the current state where modern America is worse than Ancient Rome for income inequality?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1...n_1158926.html

I'd also settle for Reagan era taxes and enough welfare spending to ensure America no longer had the highest rates of infant mortality, homelessness, and child hunger in the developed world.

[Phier]

Maybe there's a middle road between evil communist Sweden and the current state where modern America is worse than Ancient Rome for income inequality?

Ah the buzzword again, its 2000's gravitas.

I'd also settle for Reagan era taxes and enough welfare spending to ensure America no longer had the highest rates of infant mortality, homelessness, and child hunger in the developed world.

You an lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. I can't tell you how many treatment plans for children I set up in the FREE children's clinic I worked in and had the parents never show up for treatment.

[Kaiser Nonsense]

I'd prefer to live in Hell than in Sweden, it's the worst country of the world in my opinion, there is a law the forbids men to piss standing up. There is a law that forbids pork food to be sold in public places, there is a law that if a girl sleeps with a guy, drunk, and regrets it the other day, the man will face a trial for rape.

They just want to be too "progressive" and forget about the traditional values that defended Europe for over a thousand years. Now they are about to test some of the "Islamic tolerance".



And cheers to the future of Sweden:



P.S.: 92%, not even yanks would be that crazy. I challenge that number, and if it was indeed a real result, the question is still misleading.

[Adar]

I'd prefer to live in Hell than in Sweden, it's the worst country of the world in my opinion, there is a law the forbids men to piss standing up. There is a law that forbids pork food to be sold in public places, there is a law that if a girl sleeps with a guy, drunk, and regrets it the other day, the man will face a trial for rape.

None of those claims are true.

I am not going to post a picture of me pissing while standing up but here is a picture of a shop selling Gyros (thinly sliced pork similar to Kebab) in Malmö.

[Kaiser Nonsense]

None of those claims are true.

I am not going to post a picture of me pissing while standing up but here is a picture of a shop selling Gyros (thinly sliced pork similar to Kebab) in Malmö.

Nice, a photo of a Gyros, whatever the hell that means anyway, as that looks more like a tobacco store than a porkshop.

[Astaroth]

I like how uninformed posts try to explain Sweden to... actual Swedish people.

But really, this whole scaremongering with Eurabia, cultural marxism and so on is getting really boring really fast. Mass-murderung terrorist-lunatic Anders Breivik already demonstrated his disdain for "cultural marxism" to the world, no need for repeat offenders.

[Visna]

I'd prefer to live in Hell than in Sweden, it's the worst country of the world in my opinion, there is a law the forbids men to piss standing up. There is a law that forbids pork food to be sold in public places, there is a law that if a girl sleeps with a guy, drunk, and regrets it the other day, the man will face a trial for rape.

Don't listen to those who attempt to correct you, I for one enjoy your contributions, and this is very intriguing. Please, tell me more about those laws.

[Ludicus]

Nordic taxation. It only benefits the lazy and punishes the ambitious worker

A neolithic argument...
Your friend Charles Murray also advocates the total elimination of the welfare state, and claims that poverty remains a national problem because "a lot of people are born lazy"- and - as he explains- disadvantaged groups (blacks and Latino communities) are disadvantaged because, on average, they cannot compete with white men, who are intellectually, psychologically and morally superior.



-------

Well, ask the the Swedish electorate, they are willing to pay more taxes. Reinfeldt neglected the welfare state, the main reason for Sweden's turn to the left. But it seems that in your opinion Swedes are too dumb for democracy.

----

Mass-murderung terrorist-lunatic Anders Breivik already demonstrated...

Well said. And I felt sad, because this thought occurred to me.

[Phier]

Ok I had to look up the pee standing up thing, and apparently its a real thing but I can't find if it was ever voted on or just one of those left wing silly things.

http://www.worldwideweirdnews.com/2013/06/n27680.html

There are a LOT of articles on it but being its all "Want to make illegal" not "made illegal" I'm just going to assume that Swedes are not that loony.