Post by jeffolie on Jun 20, 2012 17:11:07 GMT -6
Good FED lying: most Americans are not average Americans
Opposite?: most Americans are the opposite of a group of where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average," Lake Wobegon
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon
I focus on average Americans meaning how most of the 40 to 60% percent of incomes/wealth cope with difficult life styles today. I want to focus on the most common Americans.
My predictions of screwflation, etc focus on this center group of Americans as compared to the rich, upper 20% of incomes/wealth group. Meaning a different group of issues concern life experiences which the term 'inequality' or 'class warfare' or '1% vs 99%' commonly gets used.
The central, center, average Americans income called median income manipulated by the FED became a lie because the FED omitted the top of the upper 20% group. Shame on the lying FED?
My focus remains essentially unchanged because like a teacher omitting the perfect scores on a test to create a 'curve', these ultra rich make the curve 'unfair' to most Americans. Omitting the ultra rich does improve understanding the income/wealth of the middle 20%. So, good for the FED...not shame on the lying FED this time.
Still I wonder what other manipulations have not been disclosed by the lying FED?
Like an auditor who notices an off the books expense that was omitted, the below piece notices the omitted ultra rich.
"... How big a difference could that really make? Well, it turns out, as of 2011, that the top 400 people in America own more than the entire bottom 60% of Americans. So this is not a trivial exclusion. ..."
Opposite: most Americans are the opposite of a group of where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average," Lake Wobegon
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon
=================================
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Did the Federal Reserve Survey on Wealth Exclude the Top 400 Wealthiest People in America?
By Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/matthewstoller.
The recent Federal Reserve analysis of the effects of the Great Recession on household wealth and income was a doozy, showing that median income dropped 7.7% and median net worth fell by 38.8% from 2007-2010. But that may not be the whole truth – the Fed might actually be leaving a very significant group of people out of the sample – the top 400 wealthiest people, or the 0.0000035%.
Someone brought this part of the the Fed study to my attention (note to self, always read the section on methodology).
Second, a supplemental sample is selected to disproportionately include wealthy families, which hold a relatively large share of such thinly held assets as noncorporate businesses and tax-exempt bonds. Called the “list sample,” this group is drawn from a list of statistical records derived from tax returns. These records are used under strict rules governing confidentiality, the rights of potential respondents to refuse participation in the survey, and the types of information that can be made available. Persons listed by Forbes magazine as being among the wealthiest 400 people in the United States are excluded from sampling.
This passage describes how the Fed got the information on wealth and income., and I’ve bolded the relevant sentence. The Fed can easily get data on the non-wealthy, because the non-wealthy don’t have very much. Most people, to the extent they own anything, have some home equity, a bank account and perhaps a few mutual funds, with most wealth concentrated in housing. So the Fed researchers can essentially look at homeownership rates and figure out how much the non-wealthy people own, and how much they’ve lost or gained. But the wealthy are different, and here’s where it gets tricky. The wealthy own lots of illiquid assets, everything from priceless paintings to private multi-billion dollar companies. So the Fed does a separate survey just on the wealthy. Only, as the researchers say, “analysis of the data confirms that the tendency to refuse participation is highly correlated with net worth.” The rich aren’t just rich, they are secretive. And apparently the super-rich are super-secretive. And for some reason, these researchers just didn’t include the Forbes 400, the very richest of the rich.
You might say that the exclusion of 400 people isn’t significant; after all, it’s just 400 people. How big a difference could that really make? Well, it turns out, as of 2011, that the top 400 people in America own more than the entire bottom 60% of Americans. So this is not a trivial exclusion. The Fed claims in the report that it has a method for adjusting for rich people who don’t respond to their survey. Why the Fed has just not included the Forbes 400 is not clear, and I’m curious how they adjust for leaving out Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett and company. I’ll send an email to the Fed to find out.
www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/did-the-federal-reserve-survey-on-wealth-exclude-the-top-400-wealthiest-people-in-america.html
Opposite?: most Americans are the opposite of a group of where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average," Lake Wobegon
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon
I focus on average Americans meaning how most of the 40 to 60% percent of incomes/wealth cope with difficult life styles today. I want to focus on the most common Americans.
My predictions of screwflation, etc focus on this center group of Americans as compared to the rich, upper 20% of incomes/wealth group. Meaning a different group of issues concern life experiences which the term 'inequality' or 'class warfare' or '1% vs 99%' commonly gets used.
The central, center, average Americans income called median income manipulated by the FED became a lie because the FED omitted the top of the upper 20% group. Shame on the lying FED?
My focus remains essentially unchanged because like a teacher omitting the perfect scores on a test to create a 'curve', these ultra rich make the curve 'unfair' to most Americans. Omitting the ultra rich does improve understanding the income/wealth of the middle 20%. So, good for the FED...not shame on the lying FED this time.
Still I wonder what other manipulations have not been disclosed by the lying FED?
Like an auditor who notices an off the books expense that was omitted, the below piece notices the omitted ultra rich.
"... How big a difference could that really make? Well, it turns out, as of 2011, that the top 400 people in America own more than the entire bottom 60% of Americans. So this is not a trivial exclusion. ..."
Opposite: most Americans are the opposite of a group of where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average," Lake Wobegon
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon
=================================
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Did the Federal Reserve Survey on Wealth Exclude the Top 400 Wealthiest People in America?
By Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/matthewstoller.
The recent Federal Reserve analysis of the effects of the Great Recession on household wealth and income was a doozy, showing that median income dropped 7.7% and median net worth fell by 38.8% from 2007-2010. But that may not be the whole truth – the Fed might actually be leaving a very significant group of people out of the sample – the top 400 wealthiest people, or the 0.0000035%.
Someone brought this part of the the Fed study to my attention (note to self, always read the section on methodology).
Second, a supplemental sample is selected to disproportionately include wealthy families, which hold a relatively large share of such thinly held assets as noncorporate businesses and tax-exempt bonds. Called the “list sample,” this group is drawn from a list of statistical records derived from tax returns. These records are used under strict rules governing confidentiality, the rights of potential respondents to refuse participation in the survey, and the types of information that can be made available. Persons listed by Forbes magazine as being among the wealthiest 400 people in the United States are excluded from sampling.
This passage describes how the Fed got the information on wealth and income., and I’ve bolded the relevant sentence. The Fed can easily get data on the non-wealthy, because the non-wealthy don’t have very much. Most people, to the extent they own anything, have some home equity, a bank account and perhaps a few mutual funds, with most wealth concentrated in housing. So the Fed researchers can essentially look at homeownership rates and figure out how much the non-wealthy people own, and how much they’ve lost or gained. But the wealthy are different, and here’s where it gets tricky. The wealthy own lots of illiquid assets, everything from priceless paintings to private multi-billion dollar companies. So the Fed does a separate survey just on the wealthy. Only, as the researchers say, “analysis of the data confirms that the tendency to refuse participation is highly correlated with net worth.” The rich aren’t just rich, they are secretive. And apparently the super-rich are super-secretive. And for some reason, these researchers just didn’t include the Forbes 400, the very richest of the rich.
You might say that the exclusion of 400 people isn’t significant; after all, it’s just 400 people. How big a difference could that really make? Well, it turns out, as of 2011, that the top 400 people in America own more than the entire bottom 60% of Americans. So this is not a trivial exclusion. The Fed claims in the report that it has a method for adjusting for rich people who don’t respond to their survey. Why the Fed has just not included the Forbes 400 is not clear, and I’m curious how they adjust for leaving out Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett and company. I’ll send an email to the Fed to find out.
www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/did-the-federal-reserve-survey-on-wealth-exclude-the-top-400-wealthiest-people-in-america.html