[Luis Dias]

-The point with Ballard's tech is comparative; speculation abounded from the early 90s onward that technological breakthrough is just around the corner.  People, yourself included, are saying the same about solar.  The point is that one cannot accurately predict the advancement of technology decades in advance... which is what you (and the people you've linked to) are doing based primarily on economic trend analysis.

Of course you can. What you can't do is what Ballard did, which was to speculate on how a "breakthrough" would come. When trends are solid and continuous, you are not trying to predict black swans, you are just predicting that 1+1 will be 2. Breakthroughs can only increase this trend, and the trend does not depend upon "breakthroughs".

-Given that I have a degree in sociology and a number of my classes included demography, I'm sticking with my vision of future class structure.  The demographic pyramids for Africa, in particular, bear me out.  Energy needs will increase, but we aren't going to see wealth increases in the third world, and indeed the wealth of the middle class in the first world is rapidly being eroded.  You referred to a middle class increasing in size; it isn't.  Energy demand is going up, but its not related to middle class expansion.

Africa? Nice strawman there. Sure Africa is still rather stagnant. Do you know what "Brasil" is? Do you know what "China" is? "India"? You say you have a degree in sociology and you aren't aware of the social trends in these juggernaughts? Do you happen to know that the middle class of China has already reached the 100 million mark, and it can only climb upwards? What the hell are you talking about? Go read the books, see wikipedia. Watch the trends. They are undeniable.

At least you are already admitting that the energy demand will increase. Which was the point.

-The first link explains how the process by which chlorophyll converts sunlight to useable energy has been co-opted to power hydrolysis.  That simple demonstration is fully capable of burying traditional solar power provided it can be scaled beyond the lab.  Given the experiment was performed in 2008, I'd say time is on their side.  That's an inorganic technique, incidentally, and doesn't take into account efforts to utilize chlorophyll molecules or their analogues directly.  For someone who is arguing that future innovation is finally going to make solar practical, it seems awful strange you're deriding a technique only a few years old for being in the lab stages.

*cough* mathemathics! *cough* Until I see an analysis of the cost of these aritificial leaves per wh, I'll not be amazed by it.

And I'm not "deriding" it. I'm saying it has still too long of a road ahead of it. They have not shown that their leaf is stable for months, say, or even years. I'd say, that's a darn good question, wouldn't you agree? These lab experiments are great. I love all of them, I'm not being sarcastic. I love to see such variety of imagination and engineering at play. But I only get excited when I see real numbers with costs and production face to face.

-Your proven technology isn't  Your whole premise is that the state of solar in 15-20 years will make it feasible.  At present, solar is not sustainable.  Again, derision for biosolar research seems misplaced in this context.

A red herring. I never did such a thing. One thing is to say that in 2025 solar will be huge. Quite another is to proclaim that investment in research of biosolar is stupid. No, no it isn't. All this stuff should be researched. It's good science and we never know what will be found, and where.

-The statement about potential of biosolar is speculation, as is your entire premise that solar will suddenly be a viable wide-scale technology in 15-20 years.  Economic forcasts are not proof-positive of a certain outcome, nor is the evidence that biosolar works.  We're both guessing.

But you didn't say that biosolar had potential. You said that "conventional" solar is stupid and will never be huge, biosolar would substitute it because it is better.

-The articles that you linked are predicated on economic forecasts and are contigent on advancements in materials engineering and efficiency (and none of them address the environmental concerns of metals composition, I might add).  That's nothing more than educated guesswork; and given how well economic forecasting works long term (that is, it doesn't), I'm skeptical.

Of course it is "educated guesswork", which is something a hundred times better than what you've presented here, which is defined by a "gut feeling".

-Whenever anyone anyone says technological innovation and advancement in anything is guaranteed for 10 years, that's usually a good indication to start selling stock.  Nothing contigent on innovative breakthroughs is a guarantee.

I'm not even saying to buy stock in solar.

-The second you mentioned clever AIs managing power distribution, this conversation became pointless.  Let me stop the back and forth right here.

You're arguing that solar is the future because of the state it will be in 15-20 years from now.  I'm arguing that predictions of the future advancements in solar are vastly overblown, and that the only way solar power will ever be feasible on a sustainable scale (for all purposes other than industrial) is with significant advances in biosolar technology, the preliminary technical hurdles for which have been solved.

Yeah, I see you believe this with all your heart. I don't. But I won't complain if biotech saves the world or smth .

[MP-Ryan]

-snip-

You're still trying to say that economic and trend forecasting makes conventional solar a sure thing; it doesn't.  And contrary to your simplifications, I'm not using a gut feeling but simply saying that the past history of prediction of technological gain does not bear out the optimism of the forecasts you are presenting as a sure thing.

On the demography, I HAVE read the books, and I've done the demographic pyramids and statistical analysis.  India, and Brazil have massive bases in their pyramids - that spells a whole lot of people for not a whole lot of jobs.  Your talk about people in China joining the middle class - that's because the definition of the middle class keeps expanding (and 100 million people in China is the proverbial drop in the bucket compared to their overall population, which you have to look at when running demographic statistics).  China's pyramid is turning into a square (and is then set to become an inverse pyramid), and their social policies are all set to cause a massive problem in their productivity.  If you look at REAL income figures (adjusted for inflation), the middle class the world over has not seen income gains since the late 50s, early 60s.  The majority of countries have seen a decrease in their real income of their middle classes, pushing them into lower brackets.  Across the world, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and demographic growth pressure is pushing the middle class into one of the other brackets.  I'm getting really tired of the word undeniable and its synonyms in your posts.  You're taking a very simplistic view of the world.  The only reason that energy demand will see increases is because of raw population numbers and the expansion of industry in the up-and-coming industrialized nations; not because they are suddenly set to have a huge boom in their middle class.

And again, I'm saying that conventional solar is impractical for the energy demands required today, nevermind 15-20 years from now.  Essentially, you (and the opinion pieces you've linked) are looking at past performance of innovation and economics and the figures of today to predict the innovation and economics of 15-20 years from now.  Do it if you wish, but that doesn't put your argument on solid footing.  I did not say conventional solar was stupid (boiling my post down to this unnuanced simplicity is insulting); my whole point has been that solar is this romantic renewable technology in the mind's of many people, and it really shouldn't be (for all the reasons I've listed again, and again, and you haven't addressed other than by saying some potential future advancement that is presently undefined is going to fix it).  I mentioned biosolar because it is one way I could see solar becoming a viable, large-scale technology without many of the detriments I've listed, not because it is an operating alternative today.  You seem to be thinking that my argument against conventional solar energy collection rests on the premise that biosolar is going to replace it.  That's not my argument.  My argument is that solar is not a game-changing technology because of the multitude of pitfalls I've pointed out previously, none of which any of your points or the points in the pieces you linked to have provided concrete information for resolution thereof.  It's all speculation.  Grounded speculation because it's not based solely on ideology, but it is still speculation nonetheless.

You appear to be arguing definitively that the technology of the future will solve all solar's problems.  I don't care if you have the best crystal ball in the world, that's not an argument that can be presented as absolute fact, which is precisely what you've been saying since you first typed the word's "solar will be huge."  My position on solar generally is a null hypothesis:  namely, that the innovation of 15-20 years is not going to do what you say it will.  This isn't a gut feeling, this is pragmatism.  I'd rather solve the energy problems of today and the future with the technology that we know exists now; not rely on predictions of how fantastic a romanticized renewable is going to suddenly become.  The biosolar is an incidental bit of speculation on my part, but it is not, nor has it been, my core theme.  I think it has the potential to eliminate some of the problems with conventional solar technology and make it sustainable for some uses, but that still doesn't solve all the other hurdles of solar power generally.

TL;DR version:  unless you have a time machine stashed away somewhere, you cannot possibly substantiate any of the predictions you and the articles have made as undeniable, factual, or in any other way certain.  You'd done a lot of hand-waving about research in progress now that may bear fruit in 10 years or so, but you have no means to substantiate it.  Until you can do so (and I fail to see how you actually can) this argument is incredibly pointless.  I'll check back periodically to see if you come up with anything, but the rest of the argument has really become a moot point at this juncture.  This will likely be my last megapost on the subject.

[Mika]

Disclaimer: I have attended courses held by top solar cell researchers and participated in building testing equipment for prototype solar cell production lines. That being said, my everyday work is NOT related to the solar cells or solar power. My feeling is that I'm probably going to regret participating into this, but there were a couple of arguments that I could mention.

First, the development of the solar cell efficiency has not been exponential, efficiency curves are linear or logarithmic in comparable times to semi-conductor industry, meaning that further advancements take more work, and more funding.

Secondly, EU has been putting a lot of money into solar cell research, and while top-of-the-line solar cells are improving in the efficiency (~ 43 % as of 2011), the solar cells on the markets are nothing close to that and it is not yet known if such efficiency rates will ever be achievable in mass production. Currently, organic photovoltaic cells have efficiencies of ~ 5 %, while inorganic cells fare better in comparison. I'm not familiar to the biosolar research, so I can't comment much on that.

EU projects have information dissemination requirements; that means public should be informed about the status of the project and thus they usually allocate money for dissemination purposes - EU funding and dissemination make it more vocal technology area than it actually should be in my opinion. Also, the skeptic in me says that had anyone discovered a good, much improved method to produce a photovoltaic cell, that technology would not be found from any publication, but they would form a spin-off company to commercialize the results.

This is not to say that the solar power would not be a good source of power in some occasions, but it will not be responsible of any large scale power development in the future. Perhaps they get more efficient cells that could power a house anywhere in the world, but that's where I would put the limit of it. Even that would require some work being done for the solar cell, to clear it up from ice, snow, leaves and sand. It would mainly be related to areas which have constant sunshine throughout a year.

The issue I have with solar cell research funding is that this funding is also cutting some from nuclear research, which seems to be somehow bad or defective in the eyes of general public.

[Mustang19]

If you look at REAL income figures (adjusted for inflation), the middle class the world over has not seen income gains since the late 50s, early 60s.  The majority of countries have seen a decrease in their real income of their middle classes, pushing them into lower brackets.  Across the world, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and demographic growth pressure is pushing the middle class into one of the other brackets.  I'm getting really tired of the word undeniable and its synonyms in your posts.

That's not true at all. Present your data on this. Only certain countries have seen increasing inequality and none have seen a decrease in real median income.

[Luis Dias]

-snip-

You're still trying to say that economic and trend forecasting makes conventional solar a sure thing; it doesn't.  And contrary to your simplifications, I'm not using a gut feeling but simply saying that the past history of prediction of technological gain does not bear out the optimism of the forecasts you are presenting as a sure thing.

This would have been okay, if you hadn't added then your own gut opinion that biosolar will win while solar will not.

You're trying to have your cake and eat it too.

On the demography, I HAVE read the books, and I've done the demographic pyramids and statistical analysis.  India, and Brazil have massive bases in their pyramids - that spells a whole lot of people for not a whole lot of jobs.  Your talk about people in China joining the middle class - that's because the definition of the middle class keeps expanding (and 100 million people in China is the proverbial drop in the bucket compared to their overall population, which you have to look at when running demographic statistics).  China's pyramid is turning into a square (and is then set to become an inverse pyramid), and their social policies are all set to cause a massive problem in their productivity.  If you look at REAL income figures (adjusted for inflation), the middle class the world over has not seen income gains since the late 50s, early 60s.  The majority of countries have seen a decrease in their real income of their middle classes, pushing them into lower brackets.  Across the world, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and demographic growth pressure is pushing the middle class into one of the other brackets.  I'm getting really tired of the word undeniable and its synonyms in your posts.  You're taking a very simplistic view of the world.  The only reason that energy demand will see increases is because of raw population numbers and the expansion of industry in the up-and-coming industrialized nations; not because they are suddenly set to have a huge boom in their middle class.

Strawman after strawman, I'm beggining to think we speak different languages here. I never mentioned how "good" or "bad" the middle class was in comparison with other "brackets". I said that this mass of people has increased astonishingly in the past 20 years, and also that the bracket that was labeled as "sheer poverty" has dramatically decreased as well, in relative terms (percentages). If we add to this the fact that the population itself increased as well, we have a boom in demand (which was the most part of the pressure that drove oil prices upwards in the last decade, FYI). This boom is only beggining. We are witnessing a dramatic surge in energy demand in all of the globe, which is putting pressure in all the energy industry to get solutions.

And again, I'm saying that conventional solar is impractical for the energy demands required today, nevermind 15-20 years from now.

Which is entirely written backwards. You wrote that sentence as if technology of solar will only get poorer and poorer over time.

Essentially, you (and the opinion pieces you've linked) are looking at past performance of innovation and economics and the figures of today to predict the innovation and economics of 15-20 years from now.  Do it if you wish, but that doesn't put your argument on solid footing.  I did not say conventional solar was stupid (boiling my post down to this unnuanced simplicity is insulting); my whole point has been that solar is this romantic renewable technology in the mind's of many people, and it really shouldn't be (for all the reasons I've listed again, and again, and you haven't addressed other than by saying some potential future advancement that is presently undefined is going to fix it).  I mentioned biosolar because it is one way I could see solar becoming a viable, large-scale technology without many of the detriments I've listed, not because it is an operating alternative today.  You seem to be thinking that my argument against conventional solar energy collection rests on the premise that biosolar is going to replace it.  That's not my argument.  My argument is that solar is not a game-changing technology because of the multitude of pitfalls I've pointed out previously, none of which any of your points or the points in the pieces you linked to have provided concrete information for resolution thereof.  It's all speculation.  Grounded speculation because it's not based solely on ideology, but it is still speculation nonetheless.

It is speculation that was written in 2007, and it is still working, despite the crisis that caused great pains in the solar industry. Again, you want to have your cake and eat it. Conventional Solar isn't ready today, therefore it never will, so we must root for another technology which isn't even unready today but it will win tomorrow. I see no pitfalls for conventional solar that aren't the same for "biosolar". So I fail to see your argument.

You appear to be arguing definitively that the technology of the future will solve all solar's problems.  I don't care if you have the best crystal ball in the world, that's not an argument that can be presented as absolute fact, which is precisely what you've been saying since you first typed the word's "solar will be huge."  My position on solar generally is a null hypothesis:  namely, that the innovation of 15-20 years is not going to do what you say it will.  This isn't a gut feeling, this is pragmatism.  I'd rather solve the energy problems of today and the future with the technology that we know exists now; not rely on predictions of how fantastic a romanticized renewable is going to suddenly become.  The biosolar is an incidental bit of speculation on my part, but it is not, nor has it been, my core theme.  I think it has the potential to eliminate some of the problems with conventional solar technology and make it sustainable for some uses, but that still doesn't solve all the other hurdles of solar power generally.

I didn't tell you how to solve the world's problems. I didn't tell you what kind of energy plants you should buy or sell.

I only said that in 20 years solar will be huge. That means that until then, there should be other stuff that must be also huge.

I've been clear in this subject and so I don't understand your misunderstandings, really.

The fact that solar will be huge has no implications on the present with the sole exception that we should keep researching it.

Last, but not least, solar problems will be solved by the price factor alone. When solar panels become too cheap to matter, they will be ubiquituous in all urban landscapes.

TL;DR version:  unless you have a time machine stashed away somewhere, you cannot possibly substantiate any of the predictions you and the articles have made as undeniable, factual, or in any other way certain.  You'd done a lot of hand-waving about research in progress now that may bear fruit in 10 years or so, but you have no means to substantiate it.  Until you can do so (and I fail to see how you actually can) this argument is incredibly pointless.  I'll check back periodically to see if you come up with anything, but the rest of the argument has really become a moot point at this juncture.  This will likely be my last megapost on the subject.

What do you mean I have "no means to substantiate it"? Should I provide you a list of these improvements? I have a life, you know? This stuff is available in the nets. I also don't care if you do not believe me. I just find it ludicrous for you to adopt such a skeptic stance against a vision and be so easy on your own vision, and then call me deluded.

[MP-Ryan]

That's not true at all. Present your data on this. Only certain countries have seen increasing inequality and none have seen a decrease in real median income.

http://ser.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/1/81.full?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Michael+Mann+and+Dylan+Riley&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/fichiers/public/PIK2008DYNalvaredo.pdf

http://www.international.ucla.edu/cms/files/Rosenthal-Oct%20finalHRaccept.pdf

http://www.un.org/esa/policy/backgroundpapers/reddy_stagnation.pdf

Real median income is not an accurate measure of the real income of the middle class (and by real, I'm talking about the economic term for inflation-adjusted income).  Also, your graph deals with income disparity within a country which doesn't give an accurate picture of the size or status of the middle class.  It's a really blunt instrument.

THAT said, you did catch me here... I made a silly broad statement that overstepped the facts at hand, and for that I apologize.  Not all nations and not all middle classes have taken a hit over the latter half of the 20th century; the hits have been localized to particular decades and occurred primarily in certain (mostly advanced industrial) nations.  I retract the original statement.

[MP-Ryan]

--snip-

I don't know how I can be any plainer - my brief discussion of biosolar was to indicate how some of the pitfalls of conventional solar might be addressed to make it sustainable.  That's all.  You keep trying to construct it into the core of my argument and it is not part of it.  I am well aware of the potential hurdles it faces, just as I am well aware of the many pitfalls of conventional solar technology.  Move on - you're using this as an excuse to avoid addressing the rest of the issue, which I will simplify:

My position:  Null hypothesis - there is insufficient evidence to establish that conventional solar technology will develop sufficiently in 15-20 years to address the pitfalls it currently experiences today.  As a null hypothesis, the absence of evidence for the experimental hypothesis supports this position.  The onus falls on the person(s) presenting an alternative to the null (that would be you).

Your position appears to be, once again, summarized by the following excerpts from your last post:

It is speculation that was written in 2007, and it is still working, despite the crisis that caused great pains in the solar industry.

I only said that in 20 years solar will be huge.

Last, but not least, solar problems will be solved by the price factor alone. When solar panels become too cheap to matter, they will be ubiquituous in all urban landscapes.

There is also this, from you on page 3:

It has always happened, and there is an immense pool of technological improvements in the pipeline of research right now, waiting for replication, viabilization, industrialization, marketization. These things take time, like ten years, so if you do see news about breakthroughs in solar power today (almost every day really), then you do know that evolution in the product per se is guaranteed for the next ten years, at least.

Batteries will, for example, improve astonishingly in the next ten years, given the current research pipelines.

Nowhere in any of this have you provided concrete evidence for your assertions.  Indeed, the few articles you did link are opinion pieces based on economic trend analysis (which you rely on heavily yourself).  If you're going to take the position, then provide evidence for it.  That's how science works.  I'm merely being skeptical.

And before you throw biosolar into this, again, I speculated that it may be a way conventional solar might bridge some of its pitfalls (primarily the environmental one).  I am not seeking to make the assertion that biosolar will become a dominant or sustainable wide-spread technology in place of conventional solar.  Since you've clarified your original statement about the expansion of the middle class as actually meaning something other than how you originally phrased it, I'm not going to further flog that horse.

Address the lack of evidence for your position, or concede that you are merely presenting your opinion (as, I repeat, I have done on biosolar).

[Kosh]

And that is to just give it power for 35 minutes. Now imagine what it would take to give a city on Earth enough power to keep it going for 8 hours at night.

Somehow I don't feel like coming across a hurdle is a reason to stop with solar. The sun's energy hits the earth whether or not we feel like gathering it. It outputs a lot of energy in a small amount of time. It's also VERY sustainable, for a few billion years anyway.

It just seems inevitable that solar energy is the way to go. Very inevitable.

Without examining the details it would seem to be the case, and while it is true outputs a lot of power, that power is also highly distributed across half the planet. Things like low energy density and an inability to function at night are not merely hurdles, they are fundemental limitations to the technology that cannot be overcome in a reasonable or economic way. The only reason solar has gotten as far as it has is because of government subsidies and politics, not because it is better technology or a better way to go. Just in the past couple of months several western governments were forced to make drastic cuts or in some cases outright can said subsidies because of the budget crunches, in the coming year it will be interesting to see the effects on the industry.

[Mustang19]

THAT said, you did catch me here... I made a silly broad statement that overstepped the facts at hand, and for that I apologize.  Not all nations and not all middle classes have taken a hit over the latter half of the 20th century; the hits have been localized to particular decades and occurred primarily in certain (mostly advanced industrial) nations. 

In fact, none have seen a fall in real middle class income. There is a slight rise in poverty in the US since the 80s but thats it.  The sources you gave did not mention a fall in middle class income. In fact, from Rosenthal:

At the same time, at the middle and the top end of the income distribution, voters have become much richer. This is not just because the growth rate of income at each centile has been increasing in the centile. The poor eligible to vote increasingly vote less than the rich.

The Reddy paper addresses income stagnation, not decline. Alvaredo and Mann talk about inequality, not a real decline in income. None of them address the claim that real middle class income fell. Median income or wages are the best measures of what the average person makes; neither fell in real terms.

[MP-Ryan]

In fact, none have seen a fall in real middle class income.

Careful.  Since you want to talk about median income, the following have some interesting data from the US.
http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20070905/
http://www.stanford.edu/class/polisci120a/immigration/Median%20Household%20Income.pdf
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2008/11/real_wages_cont.html
http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wages+and+Benefits:+Real+Wages+%281964-2004%29

Note the graph in the second link.  Again, declines were localized to particular time periods (not, as I originally misspoke, continuous throughout the half-century).  The first link discusses the situation from 1999 to 2007, the third from 2003 to 2008.  The fourth is a numerical list similar to the second.

Median income or wages are the best measures of what the average person makes; neither fell in real terms.

As a matter of ideology, the middle class is not the average person.  In order to look at the middle class in particular, you must look only at real income data for (a) particular income bracket(s).  This I've seen in statistics classes, but I've yet to find a reputable source that I can link to (I no longer have access to the sociology/demography journal databases through my former university).  I'll let you know if I do.  Regardless, data from the US alone shows the notion of continuing increases in real income in the latter half of the 20th century is not accurate (nor is my original statement, as I've already said).

EDIT:  Here's an article directly concerning the middle class in the US, though it's a narrow snapshot of time.  It is fairly current, however.  http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/27/news/economy/state_of_working_america/index.htm

EDIT2:  [Somewhat on a tangent] By the way, the reason I responded with articles on income disparity is because that's what the graph in your original post was measuring within countries, not declines in particular income brackets.  Income disparity looks at total population, not particular brackets.  It's a pretty graph that demonstrates a broad comparison, but it doesn't actually have much contribution to what we're discussing here - Gini coefficients are a blunt tool.  Since it appears that graph was pulled from Wikipedia in the first place, one would do well to read the section lower down that discusses the disadvantages of the measurement.

[Luis Dias]

Nowhere in any of this have you provided concrete evidence for your assertions.  Indeed, the few articles you did link are opinion pieces based on economic trend analysis (which you rely on heavily yourself).  If you're going to take the position, then provide evidence for it.  That's how science works.  I'm merely being skeptical.

Except that I'm not making science here . The articles I linked to are exactly what you said. The sources that for years have been informing me of the improvements on solar panels (such as the emergence of thin film, the emergence of technologies of printing solar panels, etc.) or the batteries (such as the improvements made in labs for these past years on density and building techniques) I have not provided. I won't dig up my feeds for the past 5 or 6 years just to please an informal discussion in here. Sorry, that's just too much work .

And before you throw biosolar into this, again, I speculated that it may be a way conventional solar might bridge some of its pitfalls (primarily the environmental one).  I am not seeking to make the assertion that biosolar will become a dominant or sustainable wide-spread technology in place of conventional solar.  Since you've clarified your original statement about the expansion of the middle class as actually meaning something other than how you originally phrased it, I'm not going to further flog that horse.

When I said "expansion of the middle class" I meant it literally: the middle class is growing in size, not in "quality". But even that can be called into question, since many products that are important for this class have been subject to a big deflation throughout these two decades.

[Mustang19]

Median household income depends on the number of people living in a household. Simply having more couples living in the same house will raise household income while having more people living on their own will lower it, regardless of changes in what people actually make. It's not a particularly useful statistic for tracking individual earnings.

I'll give you that hourly wages fell in the United States. This was an American phenomenon, though, not a worldwide one, and it was due almost entirely to the rise in healthcare costs by ten percentage points GDP. Thus the income/wage discrepancy. However over the same period the quality of products available to the American middle class increased greatly, thus they probably feel wealthier (outside the ones who look at the numbers). Consumer goods are a lot cheaper as well thanks to imports. Not saying any of this is a "good" thing, just pointing out that the middle class is in no crisis of purchasing power.

Anyway, you want real dollar incomes by percentile, you got it. Not from Wikipedia, this is from some random socialist website. Show me which brackets went down since 65.

[MP-Ryan]

Except that I'm not making science here . The articles I linked to are exactly what you said. The sources that for years have been informing me of the improvements on solar panels (such as the emergence of thin film, the emergence of technologies of printing solar panels, etc.) or the batteries (such as the improvements made in labs for these past years on density and building techniques) I have not provided. I won't dig up my feeds for the past 5 or 6 years just to please an informal discussion in here. Sorry, that's just too much work .

As long as we've established that you're providing opinion rather than hard fact, I have no interest in seeing the sources anyway.  But this is common to debates on HLP Gen Disc (now, anyway) - if you're going to present something as fact, you'd better back it up or retract it as opinion.  In fitting example, I now have to go address a silly statement I made which Mustang is [rightly] taking me to task over.

[Mustang19]

Thanks for not taking it personally. You have a point, just not as strong of a one as you originally made. I get the impression that the internet gives people, even from other countries, a US-centric view of the world. Yet using the US an example of "everything that's wrong with capitalism" doesn't generalize.

[MP-Ryan]

Median household income depends on the number of people living in a household. Simply having more couples living in the same house will raise household income while having more people living on their own will lower it, regardless of changes in what people actually make. It's not a particularly useful statistic for tracking individual earnings.

True, but it is a meaningful measure of tracking income trends over time.  A major contributor to the apparent rise in family income is due to more members of the family working.  Of course, not all the sources I linked are talking just about median household income.  Regardless, it is also the most common standardized measure of income because most national censuses collect data based on household, rather than individual.  There's a problem with your graph too - the income measure on the y-axis doesn't specify if it's individual or household.  Unless said site is using a specialized data set, it's probably household.  In my quick backtrack to the site itself, I can't readily find the page where the graph appears.

Anyway, you want real dollar incomes by percentile, you got it. Not from Wikipedia, this is from some random socialist website. Show me which brackets went down since 65.

I already said that I retracted the original assertion.  The middle class hit has not been continuous and prolonged since '65.  It has, however, taken various hits in decades and net gain has been tiny.  In addition, as several of the sources I previously linked to pointed out, taken a continuous hit from 2003 to 2008 - data from 2008-2011 doesn't appear readily available.  The definition of the middle class is wildly variable, but in most G8 countries it is commonly accepted as the middle 50% or so of households.  Even on that somewhat painful graph, you can quite readily see that the 25th to 75th percentiles have experienced small gains that have fallen back before slight rebounds leading up to 2003 (which concurs with the links I've referenced).  As an aside, this is why some researchers have started a 5-way class division, including lower-middle, middle, and upper-middle because they do appear as distinct brackets in some datasets (on your graph, that places middle at the 50th percentile).  Other researchers disagree, as the lower-middle and lower are converging, while the upper-middle tends to be a better defining boundary of the upper class (which has no income ceiling, unlike all the others).  Hence discussions of the disappearing middle class; the bottom parts of it are closer to the lower class than they are to the top, and the top is increasingly becoming a defining characteristic of the lower ranges of the upper class.  You can see this on the graph you provided - the 50th percentile is an almost perfect split between the people that have seen little gain, versus those that have seen enormous gain.

[Mustang19]

Hence discussions of the disappearing middle class; the bottom parts of it are closer to the lower class than they are to the top, and the top is increasingly becoming a defining characteristic of the lower ranges of the upper class.  You can see this on the graph you provided - the 50th percentile is an almost perfect split between the people that have seen little gain, versus those that have seen enormous gain.

I think the difference is that you're defining the middle class in terms of relative standing (the Weberian/social hierarchy definition) while I was thinking more in terms of occupation (the usual economist definition). In regards to the former you can argue that the middle class is shrinking (in the United States alone). In regards to the latter if there have been any changes they've been short term.

Here are percentiles to 2010. Everyone up to the 95th percentile lost income in 2010 yet the economy grew. It's not that Americans are making less, so much as growth has been ridiculously concentrated in the top few percent. But as a Canadian I don't think you have to worry. Unless you just voted for the Conservatives.

[MP-Ryan]

I think the difference is that you're defining the middle class in terms of relative standing (the Weberian/social hierarchy definition) while I was thinking more in terms of occupation (the usual economist definition). In regards to the former you can argue that the middle class is shrinking (in the United States alone). In regards to the latter if there have been any changes they've been short term.

Good point.  Guess we should have defined our terms =)

Here are percentiles to 2010. Everyone up to the 95th percentile lost income in 2010 yet the economy grew. It's not that Americans are making less, so much as growth has been ridiculously concentrated in the top few percent. But as a Canadian I don't think you have to worry. Unless you just voted for the Conservatives.

Now THAT is a good graph.  You can very clearly see the trends I've been talking about.  It's not a phenomenon just confined to the US, although the economic and social particulars of the US tend to exacerbate its income disparity problems.  Canada has the same issues, although the wealthy tend not to be as visible here, and our social welfare programs help some of the poorest to increase their standard of living.  The UK is fairly similar in that regard.  Tough to compare us to countries like China and India, though; their definitions of middle class (in India, it's decided primarily by property ownership) differ wildly from our own.

[Bobboau]

it sure is unlabelled axes in this thread. :/

[Herra Tohtori]

Fixed for visibility.

Saying that all the curves have gone up is meaningless anyway. The horrible thing about this is that if you look at the 20th and 80th percentile lines and compare them relative to each other...

In 1967, the 20th percentile line was at about 15000 USD while 80th percentile line was at about 55000 USD. This meant that 20th percentile income was about 27% of 80th percentile income.

In 2000, the 20th percentile line was at about 20000 (peak for the graph) while 80th percentile line was at about 87500 by my estimation. This means 20th percentile income was about 23% of the 80th percentile income.

So, the 20th percentile income has reduced by approximately 15% relative to the 80th percentile income.


It doesn't help the low income households at all that their absolute earnings have gone up by a whopping 5000 USD or 33% in three decades, when the higher income households' earnings have gone up by 30000 USD or 60%, because the value of money is not defined by its numbers but by how much goods ands services you can exchange it for, and the low income households don't define the buying power of the money.


If each segment had remained equal in buying power, then each line would have gone up and down in synch with each other. Instead, the lower segments have barely gone up at all while upper segments have gone significantly higher. There is a name for this trend and it isn't "American Dream".


EDIT:



Russia is a better place in terms of economical equality* than USA. Ain't that a shocker?

If you look at where the majority of blue and light blue are, it should come as no surprise that most of the rest of 1st world countries regards the US socio-economical situation with thinly concealed disgust.


*based on Gini Coefficient

[Mustang19]

If each segment had remained equal in buying power, then each line would have gone up and down in synch with each other. Instead, the lower segments have barely gone up at all while upper segments have gone significantly higher. There is a name for this trend and it isn't "American Dream".

I never disputed that inequality wasn't rising in the US; I addressed the claim that the average person made less than they did fifty years ago.

If you're looking for a debate though I'll bite. As a market fundamentalist neocon I'll say that although inequality itself is bad for the social problems it creates, nothing will really become of it and the United States will level off peacefully at Mexican levels of income disparity around 2050. As a second proposition I argue that the measures usually suggested to reduce income inequality, specifically unionization and expanded government pension plans, will reduce economic growth overall. As a third proposition I argue that there is a relationship between race, genetics and... never mind.