Chickens Coming Home To Roost, Trade War Edition

Donald Trump’s plan to enact stiff steel and aluminum import tariffs has caused alarm among economists and pundits alike, which is really odd, since this is one issue he actually ran on and talked about all the time. This seems to be another case where people heard what they wanted to hear and ignored the rest.

Be that as it may, the announcement caused the stock market to crash (again, totally Obama’s fault, or maybe Hillary’s right?) and there have been some other, more immediately damaging repercussions for Tennessee Trump-lovers:

Electrolux puts $250 million U.S. investment on hold over Trump tariff hike

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden’s Electrolux (ELUXb.ST), Europe’s largest home appliance maker, said on Friday it would delay a planned $250 million investment in Tennessee, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs on imported aluminum and steel.

On Thursday, Trump said the duties — 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum — would be formally announced next week, although White House officials later said some details still needed to be ironed out.

“We are putting it on hold. We believe that tariffs could cause a pretty significant increase in the price of steel on the U.S. market,” Electrolux spokesman Daniel Frykholm said.

Electrolux buys all the steel it uses in its U.S. products domestically.

“So this is not the possibility of tariffs directly impacting our costs, but rather the impact it could have on the market and that it could damage the overall competitiveness of our operations in the U.S.,” Frykholm said.

Electrolux’s Tennessee plant is in Springfield, a hard-right, deep-red district that overwhelmingly voted for Trump. It is represented in the U.S. Congress by the pro-Trump Diane Black, now running for governor, a woman who said helping Trump pass his tax cuts was the “proudest moment of her life” but who has remained silent about Electrolux putting investment in her district on hold.

You know, it’s so rare that these chickens come home to roost in the deep-red districts that are the source of such wingnuttery. Usually when a far-right policy is enacted in, say, a statehouse, the repercussions are felt in the blue urban areas. For example, when our state legislature passed an anti-LGBT counseling bill, the rural districts whose homophobic reps pushed this hate leg got off scott-free, while major conferences pulled out Nashville — represented by Democrats in the legislature, who had voted against the bill. As I’ve said more than once, boycotts and national shaming don’t work if they hurt your allies, not your adversaries.

But when it comes to trade policy and tariffs, those chickens are going to come home to roost in red districts, because global companies located their plants in cheap-labor, cheap-land rural areas. So far, Tennessee Trump voters have been able to have their cake and eat it, too. But globalism is a fact of life everywhere — even in rural Tennessee. Electrolux is anticipating higher U.S. steel prices and higher inflation. So, too, will Nissan USA, Toyota, Volkswagon, Mercedes-Benz, BMW … all of the major car brands who have plants across the rural South, and all of their multinational suppliers: Germany’s Mann+Hummel, which builds car parts at its plant in Dunlap, TN. Or YAPP Automotive Systems, a Chinese company with U.S. plants in Gallatin and Chattanooga. They make gas tanks for cars. Or the Spanish auto parts manufacturer Ficosa, which has a plant in Cookeville, TN where they make rear-view mirrors.

Do these companies use steel and aluminum? Some may, some may not, but that’s the thing about trade wars: when the bombs detonate, the repercussions are felt across all sectors. Beware the unintended consequences of your trade war, Trump lovers. The rhetoric of “America First” may sound good, but the reality will be far less pleasing. And there will be no blaming the Democrats this time.

Laboratories Of Democracy

If the states are, as Justice Louis Brandeis famously once said, “laboratories of democracy,” then Kansas has just proven that “trickle down economics” doesn’t work. Like other forms of snake oil and quackery, it should be banished from any serious discussion about the economic remedies we need to fix whatever ails us.

In case you missed it, Kansas’ Republican-dominated legislature has just handed Gov. Sam Brownnback a huge defeat, overriding his veto of a bill that would finally raise taxes after years of starvation budgets that resulted in Kansas schools running on shortened schedules and crumbling infrastructure going unfixed. (Let me add: Tennessee just did a similar thing with the official passage of Gov. Haslam’s IMPROVE Act, our first gas tax increase in almost 30 years. It appears Republicans have finally gotten the message that stuff needs to be paid for, and cutting taxes isn’t the way to raise money. I know, weird, right?)

Unlike Tennessee, however, Kansas’ governor remained stubbornly attached to the idea that cutting taxes has some miraculous stimulus effect on a state’s economy. Kansas citizens were willing to give Brownback the benefit of the doubt until they had finally had enough, and let their frustrations be known in the last election. Now, moderate Republicans could join forces with their Democratic colleagues to make a veto override happen:

The legislation undoes the essential components of Brownback’s reforms, which he famously described as part of a “real-live experiment” in conservative governance.

Brownback had reduced the number of brackets for the state’s marginal rates on income from three to two. The legislature will restore the third bracket, increasing taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents from 4.6 percent to 5.2 percent this year and 5.7 percent next year.

Marginal rates on less affluent Kansan households will increase as well, from 4.6 percent to 5.25 percent by next year for married taxpayers making between $30,000 and $60,000 a year and from 2.7 percent to 3.1 percent for those earning less than that.

The legislation also scraps a plan to bring those rates down even further in future years, one of Brownback’s promises to conservative supporters.

Finally, the legislature eliminated a cut Brownback had put in place to help small businesses. Analysts said that the provision had become a loophole, as many Kansans were able to avoid paying taxes entirely by pretending to be small businesses.

Initially, the state forecast that about 200,000 small businesses would take advantage of the break. As it turned out, about 330,000 entities would use Kansas’s new rule. That discrepancy suggests that tens of thousands of workers claimed that their incomes were from businesses they owned rather than from salaries.

“What we were able to do in the last 24 hours can allow us to start down that road, to begin repairing all the damage done after living with Gov. Brownback’s failed tax experiment for five years,” said Annie McKay, who is the president of Kansas Action for Children, an advocacy group in Topeka.

Tuesday’s vote was a rebuke not only for Brownback, but also for Republicans in Washington who have advocated similar cuts in taxes at the national level — including President Trump.

This should forever end the discussion about tax cuts being some magical tonic to lure businesses and increase revenue. Trickle down economics is a fairy tale. Or, for people like our president who prefer a visual representation, let me offer this:

Inherent Bias

The Atlantic has an amazing story about the entrenched biases that affect peoples’ perceptions of the world, and how they are affected by political allegiance. Aptly titled “It’s Not About the Economy,” author Alana Semuels uses the northern Indiana town of Elkhart to illustrate how in this post-truth era, political tribalism affects our views more than economic realities:

Elkhart’s unemployment rate, which had reached a high of 22 percent in March of 2009, is now at 3.9 percent. Hiring signs dot the doors of the Wal-Mart, the McDonald’s, and the Long John Silver’s. The RV industry makes 65 percent of its vehicles in Elkhart, and the industry is producing a record number of vehicles, which is creating a lot of jobs in this frosty town in northern Indiana.

Despite this good economic and jobs news, Elkhart voters don’t credit President Obama or the Democrats. Not only do they think the economy improved in spite of, not because of, Obama, they also blame Obama for things he didn’t do, or don’t give him credit for things that he did. It basically boils down to this: people in Elkhart, IN don’t like Democrats, period, and nothing will change that:

These biases are only increasing as the country becomes increasingly polarized. As people become increasingly loyal to their parties, they are unlikely to give leaders from the other party credit for much of anything positive. Both sides are instead more likely to believe narratives that suggest that the other party has only made things worse.

“People’s predispositions affect their factual beliefs about the world,” said Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth College who has researched why people believe what they do about politics. “What we want to be true influences what we believe to be true.”

Indeed, as the economy began improving, Elkhart voters grew less likely to support Democratic candidates for president. Obama won 44 percent of the vote in Elkhart County in 2008, 36 percent in 2012, and Clinton received just 31 percent in 2016.

Thanks, hate radio and Fox News! Really, this has to be the Fox Effect, more than anything. (And yes, it works the other way, too. Democrats generally won’t credit Republicans with doing anything right, either. Although we do embrace conservative policies, and hullo, who ever thought Democrats would fight to the death to support a Republican healthcare plan?)

Check out these reasons why people in Elkhart don’t like President Obama:

Ed Neufeldt, whose daughter and two son-in-laws now work in the RV industry after losing their jobs in it during the recession, told me he thought Obama was responsible for improving the economy in Elkhart, but that he still didn’t like the president because of his stance on abortion.

Okay, I can buy that. I don’t agree with it, but at least it’s an actual policy disagreement. For the record, Ed Neufelt was the only person Semuels spoke with who credited Obama with improving the economy. But he found another reason not to like him. Funny how that works.

And then there’s this:

Brandon Stanley owns a bar in Elkhart. He says he’s optimistic that the economy is improving now that Republicans have regained power, but emphasizes that there are still a host of economic problems that haven’t been solved in Elkhart. As for the shrinking unemployment rate in Elkhart, “they changed how they report unemployment numbers,” he told me, so they’re not believable.

Ah, the “damn lies” contingent. When the facts are in opposition to your preconceived political bias, the facts must be wrong. For the record, I remember a version of this among liberals during the Bush years: yes, unemployment numbers were at a certain rate, the popular talking point went, but it didn’t reflect those who had “given up looking for a job.” I’m quite certain I repeated that line myself, and it may or may not have been true at the time. I now hear that same line repeated by Republicans in regards to current unemployment numbers. And thanks to the internet, it’s really easy to find links bolstering whatever argument you want to make.

Now let’s meet another Elkhart resident with some really good reasons for hating Obama:

Andi Ermes, 39, offered a number of reasons for disliking Obama. She said Obama didn’t attend the Army-Navy football game, even though other presidents had. Obama has actually attended more Army-Navy games than George H.W. Bush. She said that he had taken too many vacations. He has taken fewer vacation days than George W. Bush. She also said that he refused to wear a flag pin on his lapel. While it is true that Obama did not wear a flag on his lapel at points during the 2007 campaign, it was back on his suit by 2008. Ermes told me the news sources she consumes most are Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and a local conservative radio show hosted by Casey Hendrickson.

What did I say about hate radio and Fox News? This is particularly stupid because, really, who gives a shit if someone wears a flag pin or not? And it just goes to show, there’s nothing a Democrat can do to earn the votes of the brainwashed. Just as there was literally nothing Donald Trump could do that would lose the allegiance of these same brainwashed folks. As long as you have that “R” behind your name and spout the same stupid approved points, you are golden with these folks.

I’m not sure what the solution to this is. It all seems part of a larger social and demographic unraveling. I also wonder how uniquely American this is. Other countries have the internet, fake news, partisan news media and biased columnists. Has the poison of hyperpartisanship affected Canada, Australia and the UK? Do people blindly not accept facts that challenge their preconceived worldviews in France and India and China?

If living in a cocoon of ignorance is more palatable than moving one’s biases one inch to the right or left, we are all truly doomed.

An Update On The Obama Economy

In October 2012, bajillionaire David Siegel of Westgate Resorts/“Queen of Versailles” fame had some voting advice for his employees, specifically, that hard-working makers like him might not be able to afford to employ the lazy schlubs of Taker America any longer if Obummer were to be re-elected.

At the time I told him to “… just Go Galt and leave us the fuck alone.” Ah yes, that was a righteous, cathartic rant. I feel good all over again just re-reading it.

So now, let’s check in with David Siegel. Is he, as he threatened,

“… in the Caribbean sitting on the beach, under a palm tree, retired, and with no employees to worry about.”

???

Why no, he’s not. In fact, instead of the promised layoffs, he just gave his employees a raise:

“We’re experiencing the best year in our history and I wanted to do something to show my gratitude for the employees who make that possible,” Siegel said in the release, which also said the company would be awarding merit-pay raises for “all eligible team members.”

Well, isn’t that special. Their best year ever! I’m sure it’s all due to David Siegel’s hard work and not one ounce of credit goes to the president’s economic policies.

(h/t, Zandar @ Balloon Juice)

Socialism Working Pretty Well For Norway, Thank You Very Much

Norway was named the world’s most prosperous country by the London-based Legatum Institute:

For the sixth time in a row, Norway is named the most prosperous country in an annual ranking by Legatum Institute. The institute has evaluated 142 countries based on their economic performance, as well as other important areas such as education, health, personal freedom, security and safety. Norway takes third place for economy, fifth for health and education, seventh in government and second in personal freedom.

[…]

Senior advisor James Barty at the Legatum Institute thinks that Norway scores high because of both the country’s economy as well as strong social values and progress within education and health.

Heh. It’s almost as if investing in your own people pays off. Who knew? By the way, in case you wondered: the U.S. ranked 10th.

This struck me as funny because yesterday I heard that awful Joni Ernst, in her Sarah Palin voice, say that “America is the greatest nation in the history of mankind.” That just made me laugh. It’s like they’ve descended into self-parody. Really? In the history of mankind? It’s something she says a lot, in fact she even has it on her website.

I just think, you know, really? Maybe you need to get out more often. Yeah America is great but we’re not the only country in the world. Other countries do things pretty well, too. But this is the kind of stupid rah-rah amygdala-tweaking that gets you elected in Dumbfuckistan.

Anyway, I’ve written a lot about Norway. I’ve called it, jokingly (but kinda seriously), “the promised land.” Seems I’m not alone in my estimation of that country.

Checking In With NASH

It was almost a year ago that the country’s first “city-centric” investment fund, an ETF comprised entirely of Nashville-based companies, made its debut. At the time I called it “the stupidest investment idea ever” and also noted that,

You know your investment idea sucks when Arthur Laffer “loves” the idea…

.. and also:

I know I’m just a dumb housewife, not an investment genius like the bigwigs behind this idea, but what is the magic of having companies from diverse business sectors all lumped into one ETF just because they’re based out of Nashville? What does Dollar General have to do with HCA? The fund’s founders say:

The partners say Nashville’s position as an “it” city for business makes it an ideal candidate to launch the unique ETF.

This made no sense to me whatsoever, and it still doesn’t. It struck me as nothing more than a civic marketing campaign involving some local hotshots with too much extra money lying in their overstuffed sofa cushions which they didn’t mind throwing away. That’s fine if you can afford it, but there are some investment-ignorant people out there who actually buy this horseshit who probably can’t afford to lose their retirement money on what is basically a marketing ploy by the local Chamber of Commerce.

But what do I know. So, was the NASH ETF really a lousy idea? Let’s take a look-see:

NASH opened at $25 per share. Today it’s at $27.88. Its range: $23.75-$28 a share. YTD Return: a whopping 1.10% (inflation rate for May 2014 was 2.13%). Meanwhile, the markets as a whole have been booming. For example:

The NASDAQ composite is up 6.80%:

The S&P 500 is up nearly 7%:

While even the Dow has been up 2,56%:

Again, I’m no genius about this stuff, maybe I’m missing something, but it still seems like this was a stupid idea and Arthur Laffer is still an economic dunce.

Stupidest Investment Idea Ever

You know your investment idea sucks when Arthur Laffer “loves” the idea:

Nashville-based LocalShares Inc. announced Friday that the nation’s first city-centric investment fund — made up entirely of Nashville-based public companies — will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange starting Aug. 1.

The fund will be listed with the ticker symbol “NASH” and the initial price will be $25 per share.

The exchange-traded fund, an investment model in which assets such as securities and commodities are traded on stock exchanges much like stocks, will allow investment in a portfolio of Nashville public companies. Qualified companies must be based in Nashville, traded on an exchange, have a minimum of $100 million in market capitalization and at least 50,000 shares traded daily. More than two dozen such companies operate in Nashville, including retailers Dollar General Corp. and Tractor Supply Co. and hospital heavyweight HCA Holdings Inc.

I know I’m just a dumb housewife, not an investment genius like the bigwigs behind this idea, but what is the magic of having companies from diverse business sectors all lumped into one ETF just because they’re based out of Nashville? What does Dollar General have to do with HCA? The fund’s founders say:

The partners say Nashville’s position as an “it” city for business makes it an ideal candidate to launch the unique ETF.

Huh? How do you figure? So we’re an “it city,” big deal. That’s great if you want to find a cool restaurant on Saturday night but what the hell does that have to do with investments? How on earth is that supposed to affect the business performance of regional and national companies? How does that impact the market for fertilizer and equipment of the type sold at Tractor Supply stores?

I do not get this idea, not at all. I’ve dabbled in a few ETFs, but these have always been funds united of purpose: clean energy, for example. Not, “hey they’re all based out of Nashville and Nashville is a cool town.”

But economic clown Arthur Laffer thinks it’s terrific:

“I’m very excited about the concept,” he said. “It’s a beautiful vehicle for someone who wants to invest and take advantage of good state and local economics.”

This makes absolutely no sense, but then, neither did Laffer’s famous “Laffer curve,” or the time he lied to state legislators about Fred Smith moving FedEx out of state because of the estate tax. So there you go.

Hamilton Nolan at Gawker had a hilarious post about this back in June. Titled “How to Beat the Wall Street Pros in One Easy Step,” here is what Nolan had to say:

To be a successful investor, you only need to know one thing.

And here it is, the secret to beating the Wall Street pros: 1) Leave your investments alone for a long time.

I had to laugh because it’s so true. If you try to game the system or think you’ll make a killing over night or are freaking out because the market crashed (or the market is soaring), then all you are doing is losing money and probably a bunch of sleep. This is not a recipe for success.

Instead, buy a blue chip and forget about it for about 20 years.

And by all means, do not listen to Arthur Laffer. That guy is an idiot.

Pigs At The Trough, Etc.

A whistleblower lawsuit has been filed against private defense contractor Jorge Scientific, described in the link as a “billion dollar government contractor.” According to the lawsuit, Jorge’s Kabul, Afghanistan operation indulged in such flagrant and gross misconduct, it placed the U.S. mission in Afghanistan at risk.

What kind of misconduct? Take it away:

For example, they indiscriminately fired weapons and possessed grenades (legally prohibited for government contractors), and drunken Jorge supervisors tossed live ammunition into house party bonfires causing the bullets to explode and destroy property. In one case, an errant bullet struck a Jorge employee near his eye and exploding bullets regularly found their way into the nearby civilian community causing Afghani civilian and military neighbors to complain – Jorge ignored those complaints.

Oooh that’s bad. But you know, not that bad, right? Wrong:

According to court documents alcohol abuse at the Villa was so prevalent, that in an inebriated and oxycodone induced state, Sullivan once placed a loaded gun in the mouth of an Islamic Jorge employee and called him “my nigga.” Another documented incident shows a Jorge executive drunk with a firearm snagged in his waist belt and disparaging “f…ing Arabs.” In another incident, two Jorge employees driving home drunk from a bar ended up in a ditch, clearly violating local customs and Islamic codes which prohibit alcohol consumption and driving under the influence.

Naturally, these alcohol-and-oxy parties were paid for by the U.S. taxpayer. And then we have this alleged incident, which is so bad you almost want to laugh:

In yet another incident captured on video, Jorge’s security manager for the entire country of Afghanistan was so intoxicated he was choking on his own vomit. When one of the relators tried to retrieve the medic from his bedroom to provide treatment, the relator found the medic himself intoxicated and drugged on ketamine to the point of incoherence, unresponsive with a syringe and a bag of horse tranquilizer on the floor and blood trickling from the medic’s arm.

Man I hope some of that video ends up on YouTube.

If these were military personnel there would be courts-martial and the like. But they’re not. They’re private contractors, and they’re going to keep feeding at the trough. Any repercussions will be swept under the rug. The company will change its name and land itself another cushy security contract, while Republicans continue to sell the idea that cutting our defense budget puts the country at risk.

Your tax dollars at work.

Chauncey Gardner For President

Democrats, please learn how to message.

I know. I am repeating myself, but it’s just not sinking in:

What we require now is a new framework for thinking and talking about the economy, grounded in modern understandings of how things actually work. Economies, as social scientists now understand, aren’t simple, linear and predictable, but complex, nonlinear and ecosystemic. An economy isn’t a machine; it’s a garden. It can be fruitful if well tended, but will be overrun by noxious weeds if not.

In this new framework, which we call Gardenbrain, markets are not perfectly efficient but can be effective if well managed. Where Machinebrain posits that it’s every man for himself, Gardenbrain recognizes that we’re all better off when we’re all better off. Where Machinebrain treats radical inequality as purely the predictable result of unequally distributed talent and work ethic, Gardenbrain reveals it as equally the self-reinforcing and compounding result of unequally distributed opportunity.

Ah, terrific. A new way of looking at the economy, using metaphors the average American can understand. Such as:

Consider regulation. Under the prevailing assumption, regulation is an unfortunate interruption of a frictionless process of wealth creation in a self-correcting market. But Gardenbrain allows us to see that an economy cannot self-correct any more than a garden can self-tend. And regulation — the creation of standards to raise the quality of economic life — is the work of seeding useful activity and weeding harmful activity.

Yes, that’s all very well and good. It’s perfectly logical, wonderful in fact. But it will go nowhere because while I agree a new way of discussing these issues is needed, it would help if you didn’t crib from a 1979 Jerzy Kosinski classic. Then again, the Tea Party is nothing but a rip-off of a 1992 Tim Robbins movie.

Is this what the American discourse has become? As much as I agree wholeheartedly with these sentiments, it’s hard not to laugh when I read stuff like this:

Or take taxes. Under the efficient-market hypothesis, taxes are an extraction of resources from the jobs machine, or more literally, taking money out of the economy. It is not just separate from economic activity, but hostile to it. This is why most Americans believe that lower taxes will automatically lead to more prosperity. Yet if there were a shred of truth to this, then given our historically low tax rates we would today be drowning in jobs and general prosperity.

Gardenbrain, in contrast, allows us to recognize taxes as basic nutrients that sustain the garden. A well-designed tax system — in which everyone contributes and benefits — ensures that nutrients are circulated widely to fertilize and foster growth. Reducing taxes on the very wealthiest on the idea that they are “job creators” is folly. Jobs are the consequence of an organic feedback loop between consumers and businesses, and it’s the demand from a thriving middle class that truly creates jobs. The problem with today’s severe concentration of wealth, then, isn’t that it’s unfair, though it might be; it’s that it kills middle-class demand. Lasting growth doesn’t trickle down; it emerges from the middle out

I mean yes, the garden is a lovely metaphor but I just can’t take this shit seriously. Here’s an idea: instead of all the convoluted “the garden needs nutrients” blather, how about just asking a simple question: We’ve had 12 years of the Bush tax cuts. Where are the fucking jobs?

Now, was that so hard?

American Dream Is Officially Dead

Today’s New York Times has a front page story confirming what we DFH’s have been saying for years, which is that the American dream is over, and if you’re “born a poor black kid” in America today (or poor white kid or poor Latino kid) … chances are pretty good that you’re going to stay poor when you become an adult:

But many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage.

Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a Republican candidate for president, warned this fall that movement “up into the middle income is actually greater, the mobility in Europe, than it is in America.” National Review, a conservative thought leader, wrote that “most Western European and English-speaking nations have higher rates of mobility.” Even Representative Paul D. Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who argues that overall mobility remains high, recently wrote that “mobility from the very bottom up” is “where the United States lags behind.”

Liberal commentators have long emphasized class, but the attention on the right is largely new.

I have written about this a lot but it’s always good to get validation from The Paper Of Record. Just one thing, though: why is the news for the New York Times that Republicans are talking about this issue? Not, you know, that this thing has happened in America to begin with? That the American myth of a classless society and mobility up the ladder is dead? I mean, really, talk about burying the lead? Hello?

And another thing: You have to be pretty brain-dead (or drunk on conservative Kool-Aid) to think folks like Rick Santorum, Paul Ryan and the National Review give a shit about American mobility — because correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we just have Newt Gingrich telling us that poor kids in the projects only do illegal jobs like selling drugs, and Herman Cain telling us that if you’re poor it’s your own fault, and every Republican from Tennessee’s own Ron Ramsey to Eric Cantor telling us that unemployed people are just getting fat and lazy off their unemployment checks? That the social safety net is “a lifestyle”?

So now that some Republicans are pretending to notice inequality and lack of opportunity in America, why do we think their answers will be anything other than the usual “tax cuts, deregulation and shred the social safety net” which led us here to begin with?

Le Sigh. But I digress. Back to the issue at hand, which is that people in evul-Socialist-librul-Commie countries with free education and socialized medicine actually have more social mobility than the supposed land of opportunity, the good ol’ USA:

At least five large studies in recent years have found the United States to be less mobile than comparable nations. A project led by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults. That shows a level of persistent disadvantage much higher than in Denmark (25 percent) and Britain (30 percent) — a country famous for its class constraints.

Meanwhile, just 8 percent of American men at the bottom rose to the top fifth. That compares with 12 percent of the British and 14 percent of the Danes.

Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths, according to research by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Similarly, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths.

By emphasizing the influence of family background, the studies not only challenge American identity but speak to the debate about inequality. While liberals often complain that the United States has unusually large income gaps, many conservatives have argued that the system is fair because mobility is especially high, too: everyone can climb the ladder. Now the evidence suggests that America is not only less equal, but also less mobile.

John Bridgeland, a former aide to President George W. Bush who helped start Opportunity Nation, an effort to seek policy solutions, said he was “shocked” by the international comparisons. “Republicans will not feel compelled to talk about income inequality,” Mr. Bridgeland said. “But they will feel a need to talk about a lack of mobility — a lack of access to the American Dream.”

Yes well surely the answer is to abolish the estate tax, make sure every student graduating from college is saddled with crushing debt, and maintain the costliest, least efficient healthcare delivery system in the Western world. That’s the ticket!

C’mon, New York Times. We’ve all seen this movie before. It’s an election year, which means this is the year Republicans pretend to care about the little guy and trot out their same tired ideas which have failed from the get-go. Meanwhile, Democrats will let another opportunity to seize the national conversation slide by because they’re too scared of looking liberal. Pfft.