Myths of Rich and Poor
Why We're Better Off Than We Think
(amazon)W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm (View Bio)
Hardcover: Basic, 1999; Paperback: Basic, 2000.
The unceasing drumbeat of pop sociology over the past 30 years has been: the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. We're all having to work harder than ever before to maintain a decent standard of living. Wages are falling. Productivity is down. Jobs are scarce. The U.S., once the world's leader, is falling behind. Having shipped all our good jobs overseas, now we can look forward to being nothing but a nation of hamburger flippers. The current generation of kids may be the first in history not to live as well as their parents. America's no longer fit to compete.
This is the book, by a top Federal Reserve economist and a crack reporter for the Dallas Morning News, which definitively shows how very wrong, how incredibly wrong, how spectacularly wrong, they all were. The doommongers are in hiding right now, but arm yourself before they return. You know they'll be back.
"Timely, important, refreshing." — The Wall Street Journal
"This book is a fascinating eye opener that somehow manages to shoot out numbers like a submachine gun and yet keep you thoroughly engrossed. — " — Reason magazine
"Cox and Alm succeed admirably in showing that Americans, rich and poor alike, have indeed arrived." — Bloomberg Magazine
"Cox and Alm deserve a medal for bringing some sanity to a subject where insanity is the norm. " — Thomas Sowell, New York Post
"[There is an] increasingly popular literature whose authors...claim...that most Americans, even the poor, have been doing well since the 1970s.... The leading current example of the optimistic school is THE MYTHS OF RICH AND POOR." — New York Review of Books
