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Title: IQ and Wealth
Source:
Steve Sailer
URL Source: http://isteve.blogspot.com/
Published: Nov 27, 2007
Author: Steve Sailer
Post Date: 2007-11-27 06:59:41 by YertleTurtle
Keywords: None
Views: 98
Comments: 6
Berkeley economist Brad DeLong claims: "If inherited genetically-based IQ were the source of the extra edge that the children of the rich get in our society, than we would expect a parent with 4 times average lifetime full-time earnings--say $200,000 a year--to have a kid with a lifetime average income of $51,500 instead of the average of $50,000. But it is not $51,500. It is $150,000." To justify this claim, he cites a Rube Goldberg formula from a multiple regression study that I'll leave to you to ponder. This is a good example of how complex model-building can wind up in the ditch without the authors or readers noticing where things went wrong. It's reminiscent of the baseball statistical analysis battles of the early 1980s between proponents of all-encompassing models like Pete Palmer and advocates of simpler studies like Bill James. As a Bill James-style study of the impact of IQ on income, Charles Murray's 1997 follow-up to The Bell Curve remains stunning in its simplicity and power. Murray utilized an insight dreamed up by Sanders Korenman of the City University of New York and Christopher Winship of Harvard: "Compare siblings who have grown up in the same home, and with the same parents, but who have different IQs." This means that we are comparing pairs with less genetic diversity than typical pairs of strangers, and with very similar "shared environments." (They may well differ in the mysterious "unshared environments" of random bumps on the head or whatever.) Murray once again used the federal government's National Longitudinal Study of Youth that has been following 12,000 people (and their children!) since 1979. In 1980, the Department of Defense paid to have all of them take the military's AFQT IQ test. The results look much different than Dr. DeLong would wish you to believe. Murray reported in the London Times in 1997 on his study of sibling pairs in the NLSY: "To make the analysis as unambiguous as possible, I have limited my sample to brothers and sisters whose parents are in the top 75 per cent of American earners, with a family income in 1978 averaging 40,000 (in today's money) [all figures in the London Times article were in British pounds, but the exchange rate was different then, so just think of the incomes as comparative figures.] "Families living in poverty, or even close to it, have been excluded. The parents in my sample also stayed together for at least the first seven years of the younger sibling's life." In other words, this sample represents a utopian America where no child is poor, no child is illegitimate, and even divorce is limited. So, how much income inequality does this model America generate in the next generation? "Each pair consists of one sibling with an IQ in the normal range of 90-110, a range that includes 50% of the population. I will call this group the normals. The second sibling in each pair had an IQ either higher than 110, putting him in the top quartile of intelligence (the bright) or lower than 90, putting him in the bottom quartile (the dull). These constraints produced a sample of 710 pairs." So, the Brights had a median IQ of 117, the Normals 100, and the Dulls 83. The differences are a little over one standard deviation (15 points). "How much difference did IQ make? Earned income is a good place to begin. In 1993, when we took our most recent look at them, members of the sample were aged 28-36. That year, the bright siblings earned almost double the average of the dull: 22,400 compared to 11,800. The normals were in the middle, averaging 16,800." So, the Brights had incomes 33% higher than the Normals, and the Normals had incomes 42% higher than the Dulls. (It would be interesting to know if Normals with Bright siblings differed from Normals with Dull siblings.) "These differences are sizable in themselves. They translate into even more drastic differences at the extremes. Suppose we take a salary of 50,000 or more as a sign that someone is an economic success. A bright sibling was six-and-a-half times more likely to have reached that level than one of the dull. Or we may turn to the other extreme, poverty: the dull sibling was five times more likely to fall below the American poverty line than one of the bright. "Equality of opportunity did not result in anything like equality of outcome. Another poverty statistic should also give egalitarians food for thought: despite being blessed by an abundance of opportunity, 16.3% of the dull siblings were below the poverty line in 1993. This was slightly higher than America's national poverty rate of 15.1%. "...The young people in our selected sample came from families that were overwhelmingly likely to support college enthusiastically and have the financial means to help. Yet while 56% of the bright obtained university degrees, this was achieved by only 21% of the normals and a minuscule 2% of the dulls. Parents will have been uniformly supportive, but children are not uniformly able. "The differences among the siblings go far beyond income. Marriage and children offer the most vivid example. Similar proportions of siblings married, whether normal, bright or dull - but the divorce rate was markedly higher among the dull than among the normal or bright, even after taking length of marriage into account. Demographers will find it gloomily interesting that the average age at which women had their first birth was almost four years younger for the dull siblings than for the bright ones, while the number of children born to dull women averaged 1.9, half a child more than for either the normal or the bright. "Most striking of all were the different illegitimacy rates. Of all the first-born children of the normals, 21% were born out of wedlock , about a third lower than the figure for the United States as a whole, presumably reflecting the advantaged backgrounds from which the sibling sample was drawn. Their bright siblings were much lower still, with less than 10% of their babies born illegitimate. Meanwhile, 45% of the first-born of the dull siblings were born outside of marriage." This data can be found in tabular form at the bottom of Wikipedia's "Bell Curve" article. Murray ends his "IQ and Economic Success" paper like this: "People of different political viewpoints may legitimately respond to this presentation with policy prescriptions that are in polar opposition. In many ways, the Left has the easier task. These data are tailor-made for the conclusion that a Rawlsian redistributive state is the only answer. For its part, the Right must state forthrightly why it thinks that a free society that tolerates large differences in outcomes is preferable to an authoritarian society that reduces them. But though the answers may be different for those of competing political persuasions, the challenge is common to all. It is time for policy analysts to stop avoiding the reality of natural inequality, a reality that neither equalization of opportunity nor a freer society will circumvent."
Poster Comment: I was raised with a lot of dumb white people. I first noticed in jr. high that these people were going nowhere, that the only thing they could do is some sort of manual labor, like working in the local steelmill (which doesn't have nearly the jobs it had when I was in high school). What is society supposed to do with people with IQs of less than 100? That's half the people in this country. How many janitors do we need? Their hostility and resentment is sooner or later going to use a lot of social unrest, as it always has in the past. It's starting right now, as a matter of fact.
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#1. To: YertleTurtle (#0)
Off-shoring and out-sourcing, and immigrant labor really hurts these people. It's been hurting the "Normals" for years. Now it is starting to hurt the bright.
Exactly. There's 2 ways to look at this. The first is explained simply. All they had to do to accomplish the "goal" was debase our monetary system - ie take us off the gold/silver standard. History has always shown that this move allows an excess creation of money (since there's no "accountability") which in turn leads to inflation and problems. The second point MAY play an even bigger role though. But our parents wanted us to be doctors and lawyers - they didn't want us to have to "do the hard manual labor" like they did, they impressed in our minds to strive to become "professionals". And we did. NOW we're no longer a production based economy, but rather a service based economy. We have more lawyers than all other nations on earth combined. The ONLY 2 sectors that have seen growth since the Bush administration take office are medical and waitresses, which are also both service oriented. As a result, we have also become a consumer nation (the opposite of a producer). The "professions" SERVE, they do not produce anything. Now, we no longer HAVE much to export! I WISH we could export about 90% of the doctors and lawyers to China, (especially if we could get for them what they THINK they're worth!) but I don't think they want 'em! Then couple in our debased monetary system and you have a recipe for disaster. That is why we are now the world's #1 debtor nation! All "programs" have to be paid for somehow, and this is no different. But without a strong export market, the only ones to pay are "we the people". And we DO! More lawyers means more laws, which means more cops to enforce those laws, which means more violations, which means more lawyer fees and fines. It's a vicious circle! Ditto for doctors. More doctors means more pharmaceuticals. ALL meds have unwanted side effects, which in turn leads to more problems - meaning a need for more doctors. The slowdown of manual labor only adds to the problem. Another vicious circle! It doesn't require an IQ above 90 to see that the more doctors we have in this country, the "sicker" we (as a nation) become. Look at the explosion in diabetes, autism, etc... So how do you go from being the world's most blessed nation in natural resources, with the world's most resourceful and productive people, and being the world's #1 creditor nation - to the world's #1 debtor nation in 80 years? Simple. Pass a Federal Reserve Act and let those with high IQs "run the show"!
America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards. On the road to tyranny, we've gone so far that polite political action is about as useless as a miniskirt in a convent. Indeed. The more idyllic and homogeneous the environment, the more genes and IQ matter.
#2. To: buckeye (#1)
Off-shoring and out-sourcing, and immigrant labor really hurts these people. It's been hurting the "Normals" for years. Now it is starting to hurt the bright.
1) One could say (and probably rightly so) that's been the "plan" for a long time by the "PTB". OR
2) It could be claimed that our mindset has proven to be our own worst enemy.
We used to be the world's #1 creditor nation. We had a production based economy, and there were always plenty of people to fill the labor need (and still would be). The factories thrived, the money was "strong", and we had excess to export. The "strength" of the money was a result of maintaining a standard...
Likewise the more lawyers we have the more "illegal" we become. We now have the dubious distinction of having more people incarcerated than any nation in history!
Claire Wolfe
H. Jackson Brown
#3. To: YertleTurtle (#0)
In other words, this sample represents a utopian America where no child is poor, no child is illegitimate, and even divorce is limited. So, how much income inequality does this model America generate in the next generation?
 | Fred: You sure can pick 'em. Lamont: What do you mean pop? Fred: Show about a milkman, with an ugly wife and five daughters, who complains a lot about God. Lamont: It means more than that, pop. Fred: Well it don' mean nuthin' to me, cuz I ain't Jewish. Lamont: It was on broadway for seven weeks pop, what does that mean? Fred: It means there's a whole lotta Jews in New York. |
#4. To: YertleTurtle (#0)
The authoritarian state doesn't reduce them -- can't reduce them -- unless its policies are eugenic. All that happens is the Brights take over the authoritarian state and give themselves perks, and they might or might not view eugenic policies in their interest. A free society would also be more eugenic than what we have today.
For its part, the Right must state forthrightly why it thinks that a free society that tolerates large differences in outcomes is preferable to an authoritarian society that reduces them.
| Fred: You sure can pick 'em. Lamont: What do you mean pop? Fred: Show about a milkman, with an ugly wife and five daughters, who complains a lot about God. Lamont: It means more than that, pop. Fred: Well it don' mean nuthin' to me, cuz I ain't Jewish. Lamont: It was on broadway for seven weeks pop, what does that mean? Fred: It means there's a whole lotta Jews in New York. |
#5. To: YertleTurtle (#0)
Umm, yeah... by definition. The variance is more important, but less important than ethnic homogeneity.
That's half the people in this country.
| Fred: You sure can pick 'em. Lamont: What do you mean pop? Fred: Show about a milkman, with an ugly wife and five daughters, who complains a lot about God. Lamont: It means more than that, pop. Fred: Well it don' mean nuthin' to me, cuz I ain't Jewish. Lamont: It was on broadway for seven weeks pop, what does that mean? Fred: It means there's a whole lotta Jews in New York. |
#6. To: YertleTurtle (#0)
So the lower IQs have more children. No wonder the average intelligence is decreasing.
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