Re: Growing Inequalities - Response to an EvalTalk Subscriber

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent discussion-list post “Re: Growing Inequalities - Response to an EvalTalk Subscriber” [Hake (2012)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In response to my post “Re: Growing Inequalities - Response To ‘Haim’ ” at http://bit.ly/JHkbY9, an EvalTalk subscriber wrote to me privately (paraphrasing):

“You wrote: ‘Math-Teach’s ‘Haim’ responded at http://bit.ly/KSpXrz and seemed to suggest that: (1) immigrants from Latin America are responsible for a significant fraction of poverty in the United States, and (2) income inequality can be reduced by restricting Latino immigration.’ If you are right about what he said, I think he is remarkably ignorant of the long history of income inequality and poverty in America and woefully ignorant of its underlying causes.” The latter are well delineated by Noah (2012) in The Great Divergence http://bit.ly/Kgex2i.

I agree with the EvalTalk subscriber regarding “Haim's” ignorance. In a later Math-Teach post the person who hides behind the pseudonym “Haim” wrote at http://bit.ly/JuVXps (paraphrasing), “. . . .Hake was referring to the classical Marxist metric of ‘The Gap’: ‘The rich get richer, the poor get poorer’ sort of thing. . . . .This gives the socialists a lot to talk about. . . . They implement policies that will naturally cause incomes to diverge, then they blame us for the divergence. They play exactly the same game in public education. They implement policies everyone knows will do terrible damage (social promotion, anyone?), then they scream bloody murder about the damage.”

Is it possible that “Haim” is actually a REAL PERSON??
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To access the complete 11 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/MRy8ZT.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
rrhake@earthlink.net
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to SDI Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Academia: http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/rrhake

". . . .from 1980 to 2005, 80 percent of the total increase in American's income went to the top 1 percent."
- Timothy Noah (2012, page 25)


REFERENCES [All URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 27 May 2012.]
Hake, R.R. 2012. “Re: Growing Inequalities - Response to an EvalTalk Subscriber,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/MRy8ZT. Post of 27 May 2012 13:34:19-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are also being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Noah, T. 2012. The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It. Bloomsbury Press, publisher’s
information at http://bit.ly/Kgex2i, note the “read an excerpt - pages 10-27 of Chapter 1, “Paradise Lost.” Amazon.com information at http://amzn.to/KLw98C, note the searchable “Look Inside” feature.