"Income Inequality": So What?

[Liability]

The Inequality Fetish - Patrick Brennan - National Review Online

 

[Liability]

Do Rising Top Incomes Lift All Boats? by Dan Andrews, Christopher Jencks, Andrew Leigh :: SSRN

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Do Rising Top Incomes Lift All Boats? by Dan Andrews, Christopher Jencks, Andrew Leigh :: SSRN

It must either be yes or no. The answer can't be more complicated than that. It'd be too hard for righties to understand.

 

[Liability]

Do Rising Top Incomes Lift All Boats? by Dan Andrews, Christopher Jencks, Andrew Leigh :: SSRN

It must either be yes or no. The answer can't be more complicated than that. It'd be too hard for righties to understand.

^ from a pussy who can't even begin by defining his own terms and then can't address anything about what he would propose as a "solution" to the non-problem.

Fucking idiot libs like OomphyDufus need to grow some balls and brains.

 

[Liability]

One central aim of this paper is to re-examine the relationship between inequality
– as proxied by the top incomes data – and growth.4 Like Forbes (2000), we utilize panel
estimation techniques, but unlike Forbes we focus exclusively on developed nations. We
find evidence that from 1960 to 2000 a rise in top income shares was associated with a
modest rise in the growth rate during the following year. Our second aim is to take
advantage of annual data on inequality to calibrate the magnitude and persistence of these
positive effects more precisely. We find that as long as the increase in top income shares
persists, the rise in the growth rate also persists. Finally, we use these results to consider
how long it might take for the positive effect of raising the top decile’s share of total
income on GDP growth to exceed the negative effect on the share of personal income
going to the bottom nine deciles. We estimate that the bottom nine deciles should expect
to wait 13 years for the benefits of faster GDP growth outweigh cost of getting a smaller
share of total economic output.

-- excerpt from: Do Rising Top Incomes Lift All Boats? by Dan Andrews, Christopher Jencks, Andrew Leigh :: SSRN

 

[whitehall]

Think about what life would be like under the liberal socialist dream of equal income for the masses. It would accomplish one thing though, the illegal aliens would stop trying to get to America.

 

[kwc57]

I'm sick of reading the endless pro-wealthy and pro mega-corporate, as well as the hate filled bs of anything moderate or democratic coming from you and your lame side so I guess we're even. I highly doubt you'd view anything I state as truth, but I could be wrong. Have you ever been wrong? Hell, you refuse to recognize reality or facts/data so what would make me think you'd believe anything I'd state?

I'll make you deal you spill the beans on your life story and I'll oblige the same. All you'll get from me until is that I hold a bachelor of science degree with a minor.

Hate filled BS? Dude, are you looking in the mirror.......because you're the bitter, wealth envy guy who wants to stick it to the "man" for being "unfair".

Sure, I'll spill the beans. I was born in 1957 to parents who grew up in houses with no running water or electricity, grown up in the depression and went thru WWII. My dad plowed the family farm with a team of mules before he graduated high school and enlisted in the Marines in 1942. When he got out, he and my mom married. He went thru a succession of jobs before moving to the "city" and working 32 years at a meat packing plant. He was a disciplined, moral, Christian man who didn't drink or cuss. His only vice was smoking. Over time, his pay increased because he was an asset to the company. He put a roof over four kids heads, clothed us, fed us and paid for a college education he never had. He did better than his parents and he was determined in kind that his kids would do better than him. He built a den, master bedroom and bathroom onto our modest two bedroom, wood frame house. My 82 year old mother still lives there. Eventually, he was able to by a lot and cabin at a lake as well as a travel trailer he and mom pulled all over the country in retirement. He was a life long Democrat and a union member.......but the Democratic party from then to now are two entirely different animals.

Me, I minded my P's and Q's because I knew I'd get the belt if I got out of line or got in trouble. I respected my teachers and my elders and paid attention in school. I dug ditches for the plumber across the street from us when I was 14. When I was 16, I went to work stocking shelves in a department store. From there I went to work in a grocery store where I started by doing carry out, then bagging, cashier and eventually working in the office. I learned a lot about business, work ethic, customer service, etc. while working those jobs.

Upon graduation in 1975, I went to college and graduated there in 1979. I started working part time at a bank as a courier. Then I became a teller and eventually went full time. After a couple of years doing that, I was hired as a customer service rep for a bank that did data processing for banks across the state. I got married and had a furnished apartment and two car payments. Money didn't go far, but we made it. Eventually, we were able to buy our own furniture, then a brand new house. I became a customer service supervisor and then a customer service officer. After about 6 years working there, banks hit the skids in the late 80's and the bank decided to get out of the data processing business. I knew I would lose my job as we shed customers, so I found another job with a company that did data processing for savings and loans. I was on the conversion teams that converted new S&L customers off of their old data processing system onto ours. After 5 or 6 years, the bottom fell out of the S&L's and I was "deconverting" customers off of our system over to the surviving S&L's or banks that were buying their assets. I know my days were numbered there and went to work for one of the largest banks in the state as an operations officer overseeing their checking account system. Banking was changing and larger regional banks were buying up the larger state banks. I saw it coming and went to work for another data processing company who I've worked for 16 years now.

I was able to move from job to job without missing a single day of work in 33 years now because I work hard and more importantly "smart" and built a solid reputation. Those evil rich bankers wanted me because I increase their bottom line. They pay me pretty decently for it too. My wife on the other hand, only has an associate degree from a junior college and has managed to out earn me by about 35% over the last 10 years or so. She works "hard" using her brain muscle.

Our son is 19 and a sophomore in college. Education was a top priority in our home. He knew it and his teachers knew it. The first day of school, his teachers would get an email from me stating so and that if there were any issues, I wanted them to let me know so we could work together to resolve them. We checked his homework every night. He became an honor student and was in the gifted class. He has chosen an engineering field of study that is highly sought after. His college is one of only two with an accredited program and there are only about 200 total in his program. Large corporations seek these students out for paid internships after their sopomore year and the vast majority graduate with a job waiting for them that pays in the high 5 figures and sometime the low 6 figures. He will do better than his mother and I.........because like my father before me, we planned it that way and instilled the needed values in him. He is an Eagle Scout and has worked since he was 16 and had to buy his own truck while maintaining straight A's. He already has a strong work ethic and laughs at the kids who think their boss "owes" them something for simply showing up.

So, those are my beans. The rules to the game are fairly simple. It worked for my dad back when he started in the late 40's and early 50s, me in the late 70's and early 80's and my son now. Anyone can do it. America is still the land of opportunity. Quit worrying about what the guy at the top has and why you think it isn't fair and that the government should take it and give part of it to you. Instead, ask what he did right that you can emulate and earn your own piece of the pie.

Like I said earlier, CAN'T never did anything.

I palyed Fordy. Now it's your turn to tell us why you are where you are. Come on, man up.

Let me begin stating that times are nothing at all like they used to be. I was born in 59, first of 3 children to a steelworker (36 years - retired) and house mom. We had electricity and running water in NW IL.

I dropped out of school in 75 and went straight to work as a warehouseman. Received my ged in 81. Got hired on as a trackman with Chicago & NW RR before relocating to TX to work for Norfolk Southern and hopefully year-round. Later I went to work for a very large construction contractor based out of Tulsa, OK, working in TX. Returned to IL in 87 working the state as soil surveyor before accepting a job for a slaughter/packing house as a foreman and ended up in the offset printing trade for 8 years before returning to school. Received my B.S. of Science in Recreation Management, minoring in Environmental Studies and graduated in 99.

Stayed in downstate IL after getting my degree and have been here going on 20 years. Worked for the park district as asst super of their 18 hole golf course, while trying to get on with the state in conservation. No go, even with my degree. Ended up taking a job helping a young man/entrepreneur get a franchise up and running, hurt my back badly and he suddenly had no use for me. After a year long recovery process and after sending out and delivering well over 150 app's I decided to put my one of my expertise's in lawncare and landscape to work and now have my own business for the past 4 years which is doing quite well. Puts food on the table with some left over.

I have 4 children, one dying at birth, 3 of which are still alive. Oldest boy is 34 and works for a secretive electronic hardware developer. 2nd son is 17 and doing well. Youngest daughter is now 15 and doing very well in school and sports.

As I stated at the very start times are NOTHING like they were back then, so there is no need for comparison imho. Unemployment for youth is currently in the 20% range, blacks 15%, whites 8.2% and I believe those figures do not tell the entire story or are accurate of just how bad it is. Wages have been going down or stagnant for blue collar workers for decades - since the reagan days and trickle-down bs that has not worked and never will, WHILE wealth has been increasing steadily for corporations and the upper 10%.

"Can't" ain't got shit to do with this depression combined with the foreclosures fiasco the banks brought on themselves and have no one to blame but themselves, but then again they don't give a rats ass what we peasants think.

THank you for replying. One of my mantras here at USMB is that life is about choices and choices matter. You were born in 59, me in 57. I graduated high school in 75 when you dropped out as a freshman. In 79, I graduated college and in 81, you got your GED. You went from a warehouse, to railroad, to construction, to soil survey, to a packing house and then offset printing over a 20 year period before getting your degree in 99. I'm sure you learned skills from one job that carried to another, but changing from one industry to another usually isn't a bump in pay because you are learning a whole new job. Imagine if you had stayed in school and graduated in 81 and then gone to college and graduated in 85 and spent the last 27 years in the same career path. Do you think life would be different for you? Do you think you'd have a different view of how to succeed? Do you think you'd have struggled as much? Do you think you'd blame people who have done better than you? We live and die by the choices WE make. We can't blame other people for our fortune or misfortune. Other choices that can be made....move locations. Looks like you did some of that, but for the unemployment rates you were listing for kids......it depends on where you live. If I had grown up in someplace like Detroit for example, I'd have been long gone long ago. Another smart choice is in what you study in school. I have a neice pushing 30 who is working on her doctorate in Medieval Literature. She is a highly intelligent girl. I'm interested in seeing what kind of job she gets when she is finally thru with school. Unless some old white haired professor dies at some college to create an opening, she will probably be a struggling public school teacher. There are good high paying career jobs out there, but you'd better get an education in the fields those jobs are in.

Look, I'm not trying to criticize you. We all pick a path and follow it. But the choices we make determine that path and the outcome. Blaming rich people because they have more than you is putting the blame in the wrong place.

 

[KevinWestern]

Think about what life would be like under the liberal socialist dream of equal income for the masses. It would accomplish one thing though, the illegal aliens would stop trying to get to America.

No one's arguing for equal pay. Most "left" posters here are just concerned about the widening gap of wealth distribution within the United States.

Imagine a vast, bountiful island full of resources that hosts a population of 1,000 people. If you model the island off of the United States today, about 10 folks would claim ~35% of the ENTIRE BOUNTY (wealth) for themselves. The next 90 folks would claim an additional ~35% or so.

This leaves us with a situation where 100 people on the island control over 70% of all of the island resources, leaving the remaining 900 to fend for the remaining 30%. The bottom 500 folks share in only 3% of the bounty.

Why might this be bad? In my opinion, I think for a few reasons. Here are two:

1.) instability. As those 10 folks continue to horde more and more of the wealth, the bottom 990 people will become increasingly more agitated and hostile. Eventually, some sort of 'revolution' will become inevitable, and the country (or island) will be racked with (potentially) violent turmoil.

2.) inefficiency. If our finest schools, educations, and resources are accessible to only a tiny portion of the population, then we will be without a doubt missing out on harvesting the true potential of the entire population at hand. A child - for example - could be a genius. However, because his family was poor, let's say he was forced to drop out of school and take a low-paying job at a gas station. Wasted potential. If you educate a pool of 1,000 students you are likelier to have a much smarter "top ten" then if you educate a pool of only 10 students.


Any thoughts?


.

 

[KevinWestern]

THank you for replying. One of my mantras here at USMB is that life is about choices and choices matter. You were born in 59, me in 57. I graduated high school in 75 when you dropped out as a freshman. In 79, I graduated college and in 81, you got your GED. You went from a warehouse, to railroad, to construction, to soil survey, to a packing house and then offset printing over a 20 year period before getting your degree in 99. I'm sure you learned skills from one job that carried to another, but changing from one industry to another usually isn't a bump in pay because you are learning a whole new job. Imagine if you had stayed in school and graduated in 81 and then gone to college and graduated in 85 and spent the last 27 years in the same career path. Do you think life would be different for you? Do you think you'd have a different view of how to succeed? Do you think you'd have struggled as much? Do you think you'd blame people who have done better than you? We live and die by the choices WE make. We can't blame other people for our fortune or misfortune. Other choices that can be made....move locations. Looks like you did some of that, but for the unemployment rates you were listing for kids......it depends on where you live. If I had grown up in someplace like Detroit for example, I'd have been long gone long ago. Another smart choice is in what you study in school. I have a neice pushing 30 who is working on her doctorate in Medieval Literature. She is a highly intelligent girl. I'm interested in seeing what kind of job she gets when she is finally thru with school. Unless some old white haired professor dies at some college to create an opening, she will probably be a struggling public school teacher. There are good high paying career jobs out there, but you'd better get an education in the fields those jobs are in.

Look, I'm not trying to criticize you. We all pick a path and follow it. But the choices we make determine that path and the outcome. Blaming rich people because they have more than you is putting the blame in the wrong place.

I just need to step in and say that dropping out of school isn't always a choice. What about the kid who has a deadbeat dad and a drunk mom and is forced to leave school at 16 to take care of his/her younger siblings (and work to support the family)? What about the kid who leaves school to take care of a parent who has fallen ill with a serious affliction (because the family can't afford decent healthcare)? What about the kid that simply can't afford higher education (which has been rising at a rate of 4-6% PER YEAR)?

We're talking about wasted potential here. If we could somehow better distribute the mass amount of wealth that we DO HAVE here in the United States, perhaps we'd end up with much larger pools of intelligent, educated adults (and ultimately a more productive country).

I'm not 'blaming' the rich for being rich, I'm just saying that I don't think it's very efficient for 40% of an entire country's wealth to be concentrated in the hands of just a few individuals. How to fix that? I'm not sure. But I think it's worth talking about...

...and I think we should be able to talk about that without applying all of the mindless drone "liberal" and "righty" labels people here on USMB like to slap on one another at the slightest hint of disagreement.

.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Do Rising Top Incomes Lift All Boats? by Dan Andrews, Christopher Jencks, Andrew Leigh :: SSRN

It must either be yes or no. The answer can't be more complicated than that. It'd be too hard for righties to understand.

^ from a pussy who can't even begin by defining his own terms and then can't address anything about what he would propose as a "solution" to the non-problem.

Fucking idiot libs like OomphyDufus need to grow some balls and brains.

Pardon me, but could you be a bit more vague?

 

[Liability]

It must either be yes or no. The answer can't be more complicated than that. It'd be too hard for righties to understand.

^ from a pussy who can't even begin by defining his own terms and then can't address anything about what he would propose as a "solution" to the non-problem.

Fucking idiot libs like OomphyDufus need to grow some balls and brains.

Pardon me, but could you be a bit more vague?

Wasn't vague at all.

YOU, on the other hand, are a vague little person.

In any event, I recognize that you can't even define "income inequality." You pussy.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

^ from a pussy who can't even begin by defining his own terms and then can't address anything about what he would propose as a "solution" to the non-problem.

Fucking idiot libs like OomphyDufus need to grow some balls and brains.

Pardon me, but could you be a bit more vague?

Wasn't vague at all.

YOU, on the other hand, are a vague little person.

In any event, I recognize that you can't even define "income inequality." You pussy.

income inequality is a measure of the difference between the top real incomes and the bottom real incomes. Its been increasing in our nation. For a while now.

Anything else you need?

 

[Liability]

Pardon me, but could you be a bit more vague?

Wasn't vague at all.

YOU, on the other hand, are a vague little person.

In any event, I recognize that you can't even define "income inequality." You pussy.

income inequality is a measure of the difference between the top real incomes and the bottom real incomes. Its been increasing in our nation. For a while now.

Anything else you need?

Well, that IS one definition.

Others claim it is a measure of the rate of change in the "gap" between the "top" real income earners (however those folks may be defined) and the bottom level of real income earners.

But let's pretend that your definition is "the" correct one.

There is a difference. The size of the difference has grown over the past x number of years. And? I mean, seriously, "So what?"

Why is this necessarily a "bad" thing?

Even if it "is" a supposedly "bad" thing, what is the "solution" to this alleged "problem?"

 

[KevinWestern]

There is a difference. The size of the difference has grown over the past x number of years. And? I mean, seriously, "So what?"

Why is this necessarily a "bad" thing?

Even if it "is" a supposedly "bad" thing, what is the "solution" to this alleged "problem?"

Is income inequality a bad thing? That's a toughie.

Moderate income inequality is definitely a GOOD thing. I don’t think doctors with 12 years of schooling beyond high school should make the same wage as a guy who mans a register at Jewel. Communism doesn't work with humans.

However...

Too much inequality is a BAD thing. Why? As I’ve stated before, I think wealth concentration can diminish group potential. If a country has the resources to educate 100% of its population, but distributes wealth in a way where only 50-60% can access that education effectively, than the country will be “missing out” on the gains that could have come from the minds – if properly cultivated – from that bottom 40%. A statewide pool of 1,000,000 students will likely yield a much smarter "top person" than a countywide pool of 1,000 students.

Also, excessive wealth inequality will lead to instability, revolution, and sometimes violence.

.

 

[regent]

It isn't equal incomes that we need, it is incomes that maintain a middle class. If we lose our middle class what will America be like, how long would America as we know it, last? We have strived and fought to keep capitalism-capitalism and the middle class alive through depressions, wars, inflation, deflation, stagflation and every other flation and to now lose our economic system because politicians have found a way to convince the American people that the rich deserve even more is nuts. Why can't the rich, like Romney, be content with the millions they have sacked away in other countries instead of trying to use the government to create even more laws to make the rich even weathier?

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Wasn't vague at all.

YOU, on the other hand, are a vague little person.

In any event, I recognize that you can't even define "income inequality." You pussy.

income inequality is a measure of the difference between the top real incomes and the bottom real incomes. Its been increasing in our nation. For a while now.

Anything else you need?

Well, that IS one definition.

Others claim it is a measure of the rate of change in the "gap" between the "top" real income earners (however those folks may be defined) and the bottom level of real income earners.

But let's pretend that your definition is "the" correct one.

There is a difference. The size of the difference has grown over the past x number of years. And? I mean, seriously, "So what?"

Why is this necessarily a "bad" thing?

Even if it "is" a supposedly "bad" thing, what is the "solution" to this alleged "problem?"

An ever widening gap means eventually a tiny number of people will own everything and everyone else will own nothing.

 

[JoeNormal]

There is a difference. The size of the difference has grown over the past x number of years. And? I mean, seriously, "So what?"

Why is this necessarily a "bad" thing?

Even if it "is" a supposedly "bad" thing, what is the "solution" to this alleged "problem?"

Is income inequality a bad thing? That's a toughie.

Moderate income inequality is definitely a GOOD thing. I don’t think doctors with 12 years of schooling beyond high school should make the same wage as a guy who mans a register at Jewel. Communism doesn't work with humans.

However...

Too much inequality is a BAD thing. Why? As I’ve stated before, I think wealth concentration can diminish group potential. If a country has the resources to educate 100% of its population, but distributes wealth in a way where only 50-60% can access that education effectively, than the country will be “missing out” on the gains that could have come from the minds – if properly cultivated – from that bottom 40%. A statewide pool of 1,000,000 students will likely yield a much smarter "top person" than a countywide pool of 1,000 students.

Also, excessive wealth inequality will lead to instability, revolution, and sometimes violence.

.

Good reply. Let's see how it registers with the conservatives. My experience says that your nuanced approach will quickly be made into something black-and-white.

 

[DGS49]

By designating "income inequality" as a problem to be "solved" by government, you are presupposing that government has the right or the power to direct the activities of the economy. It has no such right under the United States Constitution. The right to tax, and more poignantly the right to tax incomes, is merely a means of raising funds to pay for the legitimate functions of the Federal Goverment, which functions are listed - at least theoretically - in Article I Section 8. (for example, to administer immigration and naturalization, run the post offices, fund the military services, and so on). The power to tax incomes was never intended to be a device for income re-distribution from the top to the bottom, or to "level the playing field," so to speak. Again, the Government has no right to do this.

We have accepted, sadly, the practice of taxing those with higher incomes at a RATE that is higher than those with lesser incomes, thus increasing their contribution geometrically, out of all proportion with "fairness," no matter how you define it. Consider that a household with a taxable income of, say $200 thousand does not pay FOUR times as much in Federal income taxes as a household with a taxable income of $50 thousand, but as much as TEN times as much. And people at the bottom "pay" a negative income tax, in the form of the EITC.

In the social-democracies of Europe, and even in Canada (a suburb of the U.S.), they do not have to contend with the Constitution of the United States, and they have in many instances articulated policies that allow for redistribution of wealth (and government health care, etc). We have never chosen to do so, and in fact our Constitution prohibits it. If anyone or any group of people want to propose that change, then we have a very simple process to change the Constitution (not easy, but simple), and they should put their ideas to the test: see if the Congress and 2/3 of the state legislatures will but into it.

Don't hold your breath.

No, it's much easier to fight to appoint justices lacking in integrity, who care not at all about the Supreme Law of the Land, but are willing to say and write anything they find necessary to try to convert this country into one of the failed social democracies, where everyone is suckling from the Government's teats from birth to death - and we can all go bankrupt together.

What a happy thought!

 

[kwc57]

THank you for replying. One of my mantras here at USMB is that life is about choices and choices matter. You were born in 59, me in 57. I graduated high school in 75 when you dropped out as a freshman. In 79, I graduated college and in 81, you got your GED. You went from a warehouse, to railroad, to construction, to soil survey, to a packing house and then offset printing over a 20 year period before getting your degree in 99. I'm sure you learned skills from one job that carried to another, but changing from one industry to another usually isn't a bump in pay because you are learning a whole new job. Imagine if you had stayed in school and graduated in 81 and then gone to college and graduated in 85 and spent the last 27 years in the same career path. Do you think life would be different for you? Do you think you'd have a different view of how to succeed? Do you think you'd have struggled as much? Do you think you'd blame people who have done better than you? We live and die by the choices WE make. We can't blame other people for our fortune or misfortune. Other choices that can be made....move locations. Looks like you did some of that, but for the unemployment rates you were listing for kids......it depends on where you live. If I had grown up in someplace like Detroit for example, I'd have been long gone long ago. Another smart choice is in what you study in school. I have a neice pushing 30 who is working on her doctorate in Medieval Literature. She is a highly intelligent girl. I'm interested in seeing what kind of job she gets when she is finally thru with school. Unless some old white haired professor dies at some college to create an opening, she will probably be a struggling public school teacher. There are good high paying career jobs out there, but you'd better get an education in the fields those jobs are in.

Look, I'm not trying to criticize you. We all pick a path and follow it. But the choices we make determine that path and the outcome. Blaming rich people because they have more than you is putting the blame in the wrong place.

I just need to step in and say that dropping out of school isn't always a choice. What about the kid who has a deadbeat dad and a drunk mom and is forced to leave school at 16 to take care of his/her younger siblings (and work to support the family)? What about the kid who leaves school to take care of a parent who has fallen ill with a serious affliction (because the family can't afford decent healthcare)? What about the kid that simply can't afford higher education (which has been rising at a rate of 4-6% PER YEAR)?

We're talking about wasted potential here. If we could somehow better distribute the mass amount of wealth that we DO HAVE here in the United States, perhaps we'd end up with much larger pools of intelligent, educated adults (and ultimately a more productive country).

I'm not 'blaming' the rich for being rich, I'm just saying that I don't think it's very efficient for 40% of an entire country's wealth to be concentrated in the hands of just a few individuals. How to fix that? I'm not sure. But I think it's worth talking about...

...and I think we should be able to talk about that without applying all of the mindless drone "liberal" and "righty" labels people here on USMB like to slap on one another at the slightest hint of disagreement.

.

Those are what we call "exceptions" and not the "rule". Every kid that ever dropped out of high school didn't do so because he had a deadbeat dad, drunk mom or to care for a sick parent. Does that happen? Sure. Is that the main reason it happens? No. I knew/know kids who drop out of school because they get too big for their britches. They want to live large and not have anybody telling them what to do. They can get a sweet job down at the Tire Shop making $10 an hour while all of their chump friends are only pulling minimum wage and wasting their life at school. Lack of experience and insight causes them to think that the decision they make today at 16 to drop out for that sweet job and independence is going to translate into a sweet job when they are 46. It isn't. Redistributing the wealth isn't going to change that.

 

[Katzndogz]

The rising tide no longer raises all boats. Instead of ambition, our poor has envy. Instead of initiative they have jealously. Whether it's a big boat or a dinghy the boat has to be rowed. In our system, we have a few people doing the rowing, with many of them entitled to be along for the ride and demanding the lifejackets.