Economist: 1 in 4 Americans is employed to guard the wealth of the rich

"The figure of 2.5% does sound a lot more accurate."
No, it does not sound more accurate. First, you are totally misreading the chart.

Note the horizontal row of teeny weeny numbers and consider again how that reads.
Looks like it's your chart-reading skills that are in question.

Also, if you read the article and links you might understand the hypothesis.

**The job descriptions of guard labor range from “imposing work discipline" —think of the corporate IT spies who keep desk jockeys from slacking off online—to enforcing laws, like the officers in the Santa Fe Police Department paddy wagon parked outside of Walmart.

The greater the inequalities in a society, the more guard labor it requires, Bowles finds. This holds true among US states, with relatively unequal states like New Mexico employing a greater share of guard labor than relatively egalitarian states like Wisconsin.**

And finally, I see no obvious grammatical errors by the author, but if you say so it must be true.

i'm with existentialist.

the journalist got the numbers wrong. the graph clearly reads 2.5%

and that "horizontal row of teeny weeny numbers" is the genie coefficient which is a measure of inequality. it is not the count of "guard laborers".

SleepDirt, i would change the title of this for a few reasons: (i) the number is wrong, (ii) using "Economist:" to start makes it appear that you're quoting the global magazine "The Economist", (iii) it makes an otherwise valid social commentary (as his hypothesis does make sense) much less legitimate by using a misleading title.

**edit: (after reading the original paper) guard labor isn't even defined in the paper as jobs that protect the wealthy. the title is 100% misleading.

It turns out that it wasn't based solely on that chart. That chart illustrates only Protective Service Occupations (police and private security) as a Percentage of Labor Force by State vs. Economic Inequality. In my defense, the author did not make clear the definition of "guard labor". I did find the original paper that the article the article was written about got its information.

http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bowles/GarrisonAmerica2007.pdf

page 5 of that paper is the most important. none of the links can be claimed as causal and inequality does not explain the long-term growth in guard labor. there is even an explanation for why guard labor could be considered natural in the u.s. as a social norm. basically, this paper is much ado about nothing. they don't quantify the benefits of the guard labor even after admitting that there are obvious benefits to police and supervisory roles. measuring pure growth in the labor of these jobs tells us nothing. again, i'd knock down lobbyists as their unproductive capital flows are more of a hindrance in their effects on the government versus productive opportunities.

I can't make out the label of the "X" axis though I did some looking. I think it might have an effect on the 2.5% figure of the "Y" axis creating the 25% figure stated in the article. Not sure.

Have you ever seen the movie "Ants"? You might have them outnumbered but they still have you under their thumb. Why? The media has you subjected to your couch.

we musta seen different movies

lol

Glad to hear you're for a progressive tax schedule. Very liberal of you.

Indeed. There's a pretty big tug of war going on... and a lot of money and energy are being wasted on the back and fourth. Good call.

lol

Though I like what you are implying, it should be, "1 in 4 Americans are retarded," not, "is retarded."

how can a singular "1" require a plural "are"? if i knew where to research such a grammatical issue, i would go there. As it stands, I'll stick with what I said.

Varex_Sythe is right. It's 1 in 4 are retarded.

AT LEAST 1 in 4 is retarded. I'd say it's closer to 3 in 4... and rising.

Actually grammatically speaking, Frizzlecat is correct. The verb responds to the "1" not the "in 4" since "1" is the subject of the sentence.

Actually, the subject is "Americans" and "1 in 4" is an adjective of quantity. Realizing that, I am one-hundred percent sure that "are" is the correct verb. Correct the headline please!

Hmmm...coincidence?

Because it is not the one American, it is one out of four Americans. If you said one out of every four Americans is retarded, then it would fit because you are separating the one from the other four and are speaking specifically about that one. However, you said one in four Americans, by saying in, you are making that one inclusive with the other three, to make a total of four, so the subject is not a singular American but multiple Americans.

to Varek_Sythe, What you says sounds as though it makes sense, so thanks for (probably) clearing this up.

to existentialist, I was seeing it as literally 1 in 4 people, not a quarter of the whole population of america, which of course would be a group, not a singular person in a small group. But I really don't know. I tried asking Lord Google, but he didn't care to answer me.

George Bush... is just.......... he'll become a children's nursery rhyme.

I'm gonna stick with "1 in 4 is", not "1 in 4 are". I don't think it requires the long, complex thinking others are putting in to it. It's pretty face value: I'm talking about a single person in a group of four i.e. 1 in 4. They are retarded, therefor 1 in 4 people in that group is retarded. 1 in 4 is retarded.

I'm not sure if it would be pleasingly ironic if Bush's tale became a nursery rhyme, or if it would be maddening because the idiot got some sort of lasting recognition.