Sunday, Apr 25, 2010
The distortions of wealth and the pressing case for median in statistics
Guardian: Richest get richer despite the weak economy
According to the Sunday Times Rich List the wealthiest 1,000 people in Britain raked in 30% more last year yet the No1 position is held by a chap worth £22.4bn is a 'non-dom'.
Posted by enuii @ 07:58 PM (671 views) Add Comment
6 Comments
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1. holyroller said...
Well all the extra money being printed has to go somewhere and it certainly isn't going to people on low to middle incomes. Like the say, the Rich get richer and the poor just stay that way.
2. paul said...
Just like Will Hutton said last week, this is where the money from QE has really gone.
3. tenant super said...
Agree that the mean average is not a helpful statistic. According to the ONS, median earnings in London are £627 per week, that's £32,604 pa. The figure is £25,428 for the rest of the UK.
The Halifax calculate affordability by the average salary for a full time working male at £36,242, yet the ONS puts this figure at £27,612.
80% of all statistics quoted to prove a point are made up on the spot and statistics are like hookers... play with them for long enough and they'll do anything for you.
4. letthemfall said...
TS
Statistics by definition are not made up on the spot.
I'll have to defer to your knowledge of hookers, however.
5. icarus said...
Why "despite" the weak economy? There's no contradiction between a weak economy and the concentration of wealth.
6. tenant super said...
Of course they are not made up... those are both (averagely bad) statistician's jokes... 79.48% of all statistics are made up on the spot; 37% of people surveyed believe that 60% of statistics from surveys are untrue; torture stats for long enough and they surrender anything; If there is a 50-50 chance that something can go wrong, then 9 times out of ten it will; eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above average; innumeracy affects 8 out of 5 people; did you hear about the politician who promised that, if he was elected, he'd make certain that everybody would get an above average income...
Although that last joke does tilt at the fact that poverty (as calculated in many offical capacities) is expressed as a deviation from the average. So if the government assured that everyone would have more than the higher average as it stands today, you would still have some poverty because of the upwards shift in the average.
In this country we have relative poverty ... I have been relatively poor in the past and as an average earner am not exactly wealthy though I am not bothered because I have more than enough money for my modest needs and wants. Even though I have been fiscally poor, I have always had a certain level of cultural capital. Graduates who are worth -£30k and can't find work are poorer than someone who has been working for the minimum wage but poverty tends to be expressed in educational and cultural capital and poverty of aspiration.
But we do have absolute poverty, usually coupled with other factors of deprivation (substance abuse, iregular immigration status, illiteracy). Even though I am a libertarian, my notion of the way the world should be run is not transposable onto society as it exists today and that's why in theory, I supported Labour's idea of trying to tackle these issues rather than just hand out cash which solves nothing.
The problem was that their schemes were expensive, politically correct and achieved nothing. The Aylesbury Estate New Deal in my borugh saw £53 million spent has achieved very little. One example is that they trained local unemployed people in 'community leadership' but does that really help them if they can't spell?!
I think we need to be far more radical in thinking about how to break the cycle of poverty.