The things one learns in the freshman-level economics course one decided to take as an elective one’s senior year...

According to today's assigned reading in my economics textbook:

• The poverty rate in the United States in 2005 was 12.6%.
• If “in-kind transfers” – food stamps, healthcare, housing vouchers, etc. – were counted as income, the poverty rate in the United States would only be about 3%.
• The average income of the richest fifth of Americans is fifteen times higher than the average income of the poorest fifth of Americans. ($149,963 per year vs. $9,974).
• The average consumption of the richest fifth of Americans is only two times higher than the average consumption of the poorest fifth of Americans.
• In a typical 10-year period, one-quarter of American families will sink below the poverty line at least once.
• Fewer than 3 percent of families are below the poverty line for stretches longer than eight years.
• Only 20% of millionaires in the United States inherited their wealth.

My textbook is Principles of Economics, by N. Gregory Mankiw, a professor of economics at Harvard, who was a member of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers a few years back.

Think my textbook is biased?

Scratch that. Of course it’s biased. Think my textbook is so biased that by reading it, I am getting a picture of reality so inaccurate as to be damaging?