quote:

Originally posted by Chris T. Dot 40 buks for a swedish pizza? damit, im going there in january for international exchange, guess i can check out pizza as one of my staples

no, and figure out which country they are talking about first...that was Norway.

but have fun, i lived in Uppsala for 6mos! its nice, and youre going in Jan, so itll get lighter rather than darker|

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quote:

Originally posted by mps242 Well, it doesn't say anything substantial if you assume from the get-go that they don't. Honestly, if you read the report starting with the conclusion that it's bullshit then it's pretty easy to dismiss the data... It doesn't make you correct, it just means you've worked backwards from an assumption... If the data shows that G(N/D)P is positively correlated with disposable income, consumption, and material posessions and negatively correlated with levels of poverty or the number of people below $X of currency normalized income then wouldn't it be safe to say that you not being "impressed with...means statistics" is really just you denying reality?

For what reason? If you read my previous ramblings on this board, you will find that I'm far from being a patriot. Add to that, if I was filthy rich there's probably no place on Earth I would rather live than in Manhattan. Further, I'm actually *for* a more liberal Europe - also when it comes to economic policies, and I don't for a second doubt that the US is a richer *nation* than any other nation. No, the reason why I'm having troubles accepting the conclusion of this report, is because it conflicts with what I observe living in Manhattan (which is a very rich city) and the other boroughs of NYC (which are much worse off).

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 But hey, ignore all those pesky correlations and resulting information, instead we can just ask for antecdotal information on how much a pizza actually costs in Oslo...

Actually, that yard-stick was not introduced by any of us TAs. It was one of the many scientific measures introduced by the author of the brilliantly written article.

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 Compare the table on page 15 with the table on page 22. Read Section 3.3 and 3.4 starting on page 20. And finally, the living space table on page 23. Basically it comes down to this... if *low income* Americans have substantially similar levels of material goods as *all* Europeans, and they have more living space per person as *the average* European then isn't it fair to say that, materially (since that's what this thread is about), it is better to be poor in the US than poor in Europe (where one can only assume that the poor in Europe would rank below the mean in Europe for material goods)?

Ok, read in detail what you suggested. No, please bear in mind that I'm neither an economist nor working with applied statistics, so my comments are based on ignorance of this field. I do think, however, that I'm capable of recognizing an ill-supported argument when I see it. Here's my impression and reservations:
The argument takes two routes to the conclusion it seeks to establish:
1.
a) There's a strong correlation between GNP and median income.
b) GNP in US states are higher than in countries in Europe.
c) Europeans are worse off than US citizens.
d) a&b=>c

2.
e) Poor US citizens have loads of luxury items.
f) Poor US citizens have more dwelling space than poor Europeans
g) It's better to be poor in the US than in Europe
h) ???

Argument 1 is supported as follows. (a) is tried established by plotting GNP vs. median income for the 50 US states. Unfortunately this only establishes that the two measures are highly correlated within the US, which indeed they should be considering that the states follow the same market rules/are described by the same economical model. Taking the result to be universal is outragous. (a) is therefore not proven and the argument falls.
Argument 2 is kind of impossible to refute, as it is never stated in full clarity. The article shows some statistics on commodities in poor US households and then writes

quote:

Material prosperity, in other words, is high and not associated with the material standard of living which many people in Europe probably associate with poverty. Good economic development, in other words, results in even poor people being relatively well off. Quite simply, it is better to be poor in a rich country than in a poor one.

which I would classify as three successively more absurd conclusions.
Then there's a comparison of the dwelling space of people in the US and Europe, which falls in the favour of US citizens. I'm not really sure what's that supposed to mean, as it seems to be an arbitrary measure of wealth? The average price of real estate in the US are considerably below the prices in Europe, as Europe is much more densily packed area, which would indicate that this measure is fairly skewed, seen from an economical point of view. If it is meant as a "feel good" measure, rather than a economic one, then the report is shooting itself in the foot by dismissing all such measures in the first chapters as being "too subjective".

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 And, poverty aside, if being in the bottom 1/4th of American earners puts you on the same level as the bottom 40% of the wealthiest European nations then aren't you substantially better off being in the US in general?

I assume that you're referring to the following chart?

As you notice it *only* includes Sweden - and the 40% statistic is therefore not immediately applicable to "the wealthiest European nations". To be honest, I have very little confidence in the placing of Sweden in this chart (but, hey, it's confirmed by "own calculations"). I'm going to use Denmark as Sweden in the following, since I don't know numbers for Sweden - maybe St. Andrew will come up with those.
In Denmark a person earning the minimum wage will earn more than $25000, and there's more than 1.5 persons in the average household, so I cannot see how 40% of households could fall below this threshold. Maybe the chart uses after taxes figures (which would be strange as those numbers are not really comparable considering that US citizens have to pay for tuition, health care,...)? Maybe it includes retired and unemployed people? In the latter case, the chart's message is then (again) a result of using means values, as conditioning on employment status would probably give the opposite conclusion:
- if your without a job in Denmark you'll have a better income (social welfare) than in the US (zip)
- if you're in a job, you'll earn more than the $25000/year in Denmark, and if you're in a low paying job in the US you'll have to work 24/7 to get near those figures.
Maybe someone with a working knowledge of economics can explain this to me?

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 As opposed to? ... perhaps... KPMG or the Danish Ministry of Finance... :P EDIT: speaking of which, I can't seem to find the Danish report referred to in the original article... being a Dane, perhaps you'd have better luck (as it may not he available in English)

I've already tried to find the report from the DMF, but they release enormous amounts of information and none of the headlines seemed to match this one more than the others, so I gave up.
I did find a fun little tool from the danish bureau of official statistics:
http://www.statistikbanken.dk/statb...ault.asp?w=1024
You can get all sorts of statistics from that page. For instance I generated the following table:



which you can compare with the one in the report



Get my drift?

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic I assume that you're referring to the following chart? As you notice it *only* includes Sweden - and the 40% statistic is therefore not immediately applicable to "the wealthiest European nations". To be honest, I have very little confidence in the placing of Sweden in this chart (but, hey, it's confirmed by "own calculations"). I'm going to use Denmark as Sweden in the following, since I don't know numbers for Sweden - maybe St. Andrew will come up with those.

Hmm okay, it wasnt easy to find any info for sweden, since there is no minimum wage (they negotiate minimum salaries instead, but i couldnt really find any general one). It seems tho that a job that requires no high school diploma gives you about 14 000 sek per month, which is slightly under the 25 000 usd per year... That is only for one person tho, and most households have more than one person, and most ppl have better jobs than that. So i think i can easily say that the statement that 40% of all the households in sweden make less than $25 000 IS COMPLETE BULLSHIT!

quote:

I've already tried to find the report from the DMF, but they release enormous amounts of information and none of the headlines seemed to match this one more than the others, so I gave up. I did find a fun little tool from the danish bureau of official statistics: http://www.statistikbanken.dk/statb...ault.asp?w=1024 You can get all sorts of statistics from that page. For instance I generated the following table: which you can compare with the one in the report Get my drift?

I think this institute picks and chooses the stats that looks good for them, not the ones that are most reliable!

Also i think that all the US states' nominal GDPs must have decreased a lot lateley, this because of the big dollar slide. And therefore placing the european countries a lot better even there.

Anyway, good posts trancaholic

quote:

Originally posted by St_Andrew Hmm okay, it wasnt easy to find any info for sweden, since there is no minimum wage (they negotiate minimum salaries instead, but i couldnt really find any general one). It seems tho that a job that requires no high school diploma gives you about 14 000 sek per month, which is slightly under the 25 000 usd per year... That is only for one person tho, and most households have more than one person, and most ppl have better jobs than that. So i think i can easily say that the statement that 40% of all the households in sweden make less than $25 000 IS COMPLETE BULLSHIT!

Check the date on the table man. In 1999 the numbers, as best I can estimate them, using:

http://www.scb.se/templates/tableOrChart____28872.asp

and historical exchange rates seem to be in the ballpark...

quote:

I think this institute picks and chooses the stats that looks good for them, not the ones that are most reliable!

What stats do you think would be more reliable?

quote:

Also i think that all the US states' nominal GDPs must have decreased a lot lateley, this because of the big dollar slide. And therefore placing the european countries a lot better even there.

I think you're probably right, and this is an excellent critique of their using that stat. Today, it's probably something like 15% of swedes earn less than whatever the bottom quarter of Americans make just based on FX fluctuations. I'd assumed (wrongly) that they were using some sort of non-FX dependant measure... Good catch!

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic No, the reason why I'm having troubles accepting the conclusion of this report, is because it conflicts with what I observe living in Manhattan (which is a very rich city) and the other boroughs of NYC (which are much worse off). ... Actually, that yard-stick was not introduced by any of us TAs. It was one of the many scientific measures introduced by the author of the brilliantly written article.

Hehehe...Since we’re using scientific measurements and all…

Actually though, that "yard-stick" was never introduced as a yard-stick, it was introduced as an introduction to the real statistics... You know, anecdotal evidence in order to make the numbers more understandable to the average NYT reader who would say "WTF does that mean?" without those little explanations...

And if we're sticking with anecdotal evidence, I'd say that in my time living in 4 major US cities (NYC, Denver, SF, and Seattle), London, and significant time spent in Amsterdam (although mostly in the city center) I'd say his conclusions are supported by my experience.

quote:

Ok, read in detail what you suggested. No, please bear in mind that I'm neither an economist nor working with applied statistics, so my comments are based on ignorance of this field.

As are mine, but I'm pretty good at the ol' reading comprehension...

quote:

1. a) There's a strong correlation between GNP and median income. b) GNP in US states are higher than in countries in Europe. c) Europeans are worse off than US citizens. d) a&b=>c Argument 1 is supported as follows. (a) is tried established by plotting GNP vs. median income for the 50 US states. Unfortunately this only establishes that the two measures are highly correlated within the US, which indeed they should be considering that the states follow the same market rules/are described by the same economical model. Taking the result to be universal is outragous. (a) is therefore not proven and the argument falls.

Let me try and dissect your analysis of their argument...

a) Well.. As far as my limited understanding of Econ goes, there isn't a strong correlation, there is a DIRECT relationship between GDP and income - IF - the proportions of consumer spending to investment to government spending to trade surplus/deficit remain constant.

GDP is the only accepted measure of a country's wealth. So no matter how the income "pie" is distributed among the population (even if it's one person getting everything and everyone else getting nothing) then the average (mean) income will always go up if GDP goes up. That's my understanding anyway... They are showing, that at least in the United States (and they address why they start with the US and extrapolate the info to Europe on page 17) that average wages (which are different from income) are positively correlated to GDP, income is positively correlated and low-income is negatively correlated to GDP.

So "a" is really "Europe has a lower GDP/PC than the US, and even worse, most European states are on par with the poorest American states”

b) "b" is actually, "tax policy, coupled with the GDP/income differences, allow Americans to have a personal consumption level of 77% greater than Europeans... AND much of that personal consumption is in retail consumer goods" In essence, this is showing that Americans buy more as much shit (cars, tvs, and other gadgets) than Euros, as illustrated in table 2.2.

c) 'C' is... "Therefore, based on the relationships of GDP and wages, income, and low-income AND on the higher consumption levels of Americans we know that the average American is materially wealthier than the average European… and we can expect, in argument two that lower class Americans will be materially better off than lower class Europeans.

Then they move on to argument two which answers the question, "does the 'median American' being better off translate into lower-classed Americans being better off?"

quote:

2. e) Poor US citizens have loads of luxury items. f) Poor US citizens have more dwelling space than poor Europeans g) It's better to be poor in the US than in Europe h) ??? Argument 2 is kind of impossible to refute, as it is never stated in full clarity. The article shows some statistics on commodities in poor US households and then writes

Ugh. It’s “American poor possess durable consumer goods at levels rivaling all classes of European combined.” American poor have more dwelling space than the average European (not just poor). Therefore, being a “poor American” means you’re materially better off than being a “poor European”… It’s pretty simple.

quote:

which I would classify as three successively more absurd conclusions.

Why would you classify them as absurd? The fact of the matter is that really being “below the poverty line” means different things depending on where you live. As far as I know, poverty is defined as “having income that is 50% below the mean income”. I’m sure you can figure out the implications if you’re coming from a relatively wealthy country vs a relatively poor country. In case you can’t, basically it means that being below the poverty line in a rich country often means that your income and level of material wealth is substantially higher than those just above the poverty line in another country.

So being in poverty in the US still means you enjoy greater material wealth than those in poverty in Europe (all of this is on average of course). You may not have healthcare provided, but if these statistics are correct, then one has to ask whether it’s an issue of Americans not being able to afford health insurance or if it’s really “I can’t afford health insurance because I just blew the $1,200 I had saved up on a big screen tv”?

If nothing else though, the article and study in this thread should at least teach us that poverty is contextual and that when Euros talk about poverty in the US they’re probably thinking of it in terms of European style poverty which is an entirely different animal that US style. Really, what is considered “poverty” in the US today would have been, in many ways, been considered middle class 30 years ago.

quote:

Then there's a comparison of the dwelling space of people in the US and Europe, which falls in the favour of US citizens. I'm not really sure what's that supposed to mean, as it seems to be an arbitrary measure of wealth? The average price of real estate in the US are considerably below the prices in Europe, as Europe is much more densily packed area, which would indicate that this measure is fairly skewed, seen from an economical point of view. If it is meant as a "feel good" measure, rather than a economic one, then the report is shooting itself in the foot by dismissing all such measures in the first chapters as being "too subjective".

Frankly, the cause of the price differential isn’t really relevant, except to the extent that you’re trying to determine policy. It’s simply a measurement of how much personal space a person is able to afford. So if a poor person in Europe is only able to afford a 400 sq. ft. flat for his entire family and they have to share a bathroom with their neighbors (and I’ve experienced that first hand in London), while a poor American gets a nice double wide trailer where each kid gets their own room and two bathrooms… well… talking shit about trailer-trash aside, aren’t the people with the double-wide better off?

quote:

I assume that you're referring to the following chart? [quote]As you notice it *only* includes Sweden - and the 40% statistic is therefore not immediately applicable to "the wealthiest European nations". To be honest, I have very little confidence in the placing of Sweden in this chart (but, hey, it's confirmed by "own calculations").

See my link in my response to St. Andrew, their “own calculations” seem to be accurate based on my back-of-a-gravy-stained-napkin-using-a-crayon calculations. They *only* include Sweden because the paper is by Swedish researchers trying to influence policy in Sweden.

quote:

In Denmark a person earning the minimum wage will earn more than $25000, and there's more than 1.5 persons in the average household, so I cannot see how 40% of households could fall below this threshold. Maybe the chart uses after taxes figures (which would be strange as those numbers are not really comparable considering that US citizens have to pay for tuition, health care,...)? Maybe it includes retired and unemployed people? In the latter case, the chart's message is then (again) a result of using means values, as conditioning on employment status would probably give the opposite conclusion: - if your without a job in Denmark you'll have a better income (social welfare) than in the US (zip) - if you're in a job, you'll earn more than the $25000/year in Denmark, and if you're in a low paying job in the US you'll have to work 24/7 to get near those figures. Maybe someone with a working knowledge of economics can explain this to me?

Yeah, after giving that table more thought it doesn’t seem to make too much sense to me either. I had assumed the table was somehow adjusted for purchasing power but apparently not…

I would point out though that Denmark is an extreme example to use because they have the lowest degree of income inequality in the entire EU and fall well outside of the average..

quote:

I've already tried to find the report from the DMF, but they release enormous amounts of information and none of the headlines seemed to match this one more than the others, so I gave up.

As have I… Maybe we can get the sources if we email the article’s author?

quote:

I did find a fun little tool from the danish bureau of official statistics: http://www.statistikbanken.dk/statb...ault.asp?w=1024 You can get all sorts of statistics from that page. For instance I generated the following table: which you can compare with the one in the report Get my drift?

Check the stats for 1993… If it makes you feel any worse though, I found the US stats for 1997, in which we were still leading the Danes in every category except for PC’s… Although I must admit, his statistics differ in several respects from the US census’s stats…

What would be really interesting to see is a state by state comparison to EU nations on ownership of those goods, kind of like the GDP comparisons to see if this analysis really holds up…

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 Check the date on the table man. In 1999 the numbers, as best I can estimate them, using: http://www.scb.se/templates/tableOrChart____28872.asp and historical exchange rates seem to be in the ballpark...

Hmm you are probably up to something there, 4-5 years ago the dollar was almost twice as much as it is now compared to the swedish krona, so it would make a huge difference.

quote:

What stats do you think would be more reliable?

Stats Denmark is more reliable than timbro, no?

quote:

I think you're probably right, and this is an excellent critique of their using that stat. Today, it's probably something like 15% of swedes earn less than whatever the bottom quarter of Americans make just based on FX fluctuations. I'd assumed (wrongly) that they were using some sort of non-FX dependant measure... Good catch!

Yeah, i donno how you can count it without any fx fluctations tho. I read somewhere that the dollar is still overvalued, and that it infact should be somewhere around 5 sek on on dollar, instead of 7 like it is now (or 11 as it was a few years ago for that matter). So that would only make sweden even better, but i donno if it makes sense to compare like that, and how you would do that...

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 Let me try and dissect your analysis of their argument... a) Well.. As far as my limited understanding of Econ goes, there isn't a strong correlation, there is a DIRECT relationship between GDP and income - IF - the proportions of consumer spending to investment to government spending to trade surplus/deficit remain constant. GDP is the only accepted measure of a country's wealth. So no matter how the income "pie" is distributed among the population (even if it's one person getting everything and everyone else getting nothing) then the average (mean) income will always go up if GDP goes up. That's my understanding anyway... They are showing, that at least in the United States (and they address why they start with the US and extrapolate the info to Europe on page 17) that average wages (which are different from income) are positively correlated to GDP, income is positively correlated and low-income is negatively correlated to GDP. So "a" is really "Europe has a lower GDP/PC than the US, and even worse, most European states are on par with the poorest American states”

I think that you've misunderstood my post. When I talked about "their argument" I meant the part of the argument, which ought to justify your previously asserted "it's better to be poor in the US than in Europe", which you identified as sections 3.3-4 and pages 15, 22, and 23. That was the argument that I tried to state in clear terms - not the entire report. That the US has a higher GNP than any country in Europe I take as a given. If you read the previous critical posts in this thread you will also find that we are aware of the problems with the GNP and how it distributes over the population. That's been the attacking point all the way.

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 c) 'C' is... "Therefore, based on the relationships of GDP and wages, income, and low-income AND on the higher consumption levels of Americans we know that the average American is materially wealthier than the average European… and we can expect, in argument two that lower class Americans will be materially better off than lower class Europeans.

And again, the "average" that you stress here is the attacking point that we - the critics - have been using all along. We all agree that the average American is better off - problem is how many of those are there.

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 Then they move on to argument two which answers the question, "does the 'median American' being better off translate into lower-classed Americans being better off?"

Now, it may be a economic term, but in theoretical statistics median American is not the same as the average/mean American, so already by stating this question you have taken the leap of faith that I find unsurported. The connection has only been established within the US, and extension beyond is a fallacy.

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 Ugh. It’s “American poor possess durable consumer goods at levels rivaling all classes of European combined.” American poor have more dwelling space than the average European (not just poor). Therefore, being a “poor American” means you’re materially better off than being a “poor European”… It’s pretty simple.

Well, the two tables that are being compared are from 2004 and 1999 (and later in your post you tell me that it's somehow 1993 and not 1999 numbers). That's totally ridiculous.
As to dwelling space, I agree that it is an indicator of poor Americans being "better off" in the humanitarian sense, but as the value of one US-m2 is less than a Europe-m2 it's not an indicator of an economical difference. Measures that indicate subjectively "better off" are dismissed by the authors in the beginning of the report, and indeed it's easy to find other such measures yielding the opposite conclusion (e.g. number of paid vacation days), so the report shouldn't be using dwelling space as an indicator if it wants to be taken as an objective study.

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 Why would you classify them as absurd?

The first is a speculation on what Europeans consider "poor" (and it is even tainted by an uncalled for misuse of the scientific word "probably"). Next sentence is supposed to be a reformulation of this conjecture ("in other words") but is a totally different conclusion. In the last sentence all remaining soothing words (such as "relatively"), which are supposed to make the transition from the initial (unsupported) conjecture seems plausible, are deleted, and we get something that is shockingly controversial yet fully unsupported.

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 The fact of the matter is that really being “below the poverty line” means different things depending on where you live. As far as I know, poverty is defined as “having income that is 50% below the mean income”. I’m sure you can figure out the implications if you’re coming from a relatively wealthy country vs a relatively poor country. In case you can’t, basically it means that being below the poverty line in a rich country often means that your income and level of material wealth is substantially higher than those just above the poverty line in another country.

I thought that the official (UN) definitions of poverty and the like has to do with the amount of dollars the individual has for getting through a day. Obviously a relative definition, such as the one you gave, makes no sense in a comparative study, which the report mimicks.

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 If nothing else though, the article and study in this thread should at least teach us that poverty is contextual and that when Euros talk about poverty in the US they’re probably thinking of it in terms of European style poverty which is an entirely different animal that US style. Really, what is considered “poverty” in the US today would have been, in many ways, been considered middle class 30 years ago.

You're making the same "probably" as the report. How do you know how Europeans think of poverty?

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 See my link in my response to St. Andrew, their “own calculations” seem to be accurate based on my back-of-a-gravy-stained-napkin-using-a-crayon calculations. They *only* include Sweden because the paper is by Swedish researchers trying to influence policy in Sweden.

The reason why I stressed that they *only* included Sweden, was because you had extrapolated the graph to mean that poor people in the US was better off than 40% of people in "the wealthiest nations in Europe".
Nice link, though. A bit worrying that it seems that the Swedes are just below the $25000 limit. E.g. a graph with $20000 would move the Sweden-dot much to the left. I have a feeling that this report has been constructed with the Thomas Aquinas method: A is the conclusion we want - let's find all evidence that supports A. Rather than the scientifically more sound: A or ~A must be the case - let's see if all evidence available supports one more than the other.

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 I would point out though that Denmark is an extreme example to use because they have the lowest degree of income inequality in the entire EU and fall well outside of the average..

Oh. Didn't know that - just followed the initial article's example and used an arbitrary EU member to further my point as I saw fit. Sorry.

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 As have I… Maybe we can get the sources if we email the article’s author?

That would be fun. Maybe we could send him the "printable" version of this thread as well.

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 Check the stats for 1993… If it makes you feel any worse though, I found the US stats for 1997, in which we were still leading the Danes in every category except for PC’s… Although I must admit, his statistics differ in several respects from the US census’s stats…

How did you discover that it was 1993 numbers? I think I was pretty thorough in my reading of the report, but I didn't stumble upon that. I think that using 1993 numbers for supporting a claim about 2004 (especially considering that new numbers exist) is pretty unscientific. And in my world it reflects on the entire report when I discover that corners have been cut.

quote:

Originally posted by mps242 What would be really interesting to see is a state by state comparison to EU nations on ownership of those goods, kind of like the GDP comparisons to see if this analysis really holds up…

Agree.

Last edited by trancaholic on Apr-27-2005 at 17:30

Well. I know for a fact that a pizza doesn't cost 40 bucks in Sweden, it doesn't cost more than 4 bucks I would guess. But I do think it costs 40 in Norway, or anyways it's more expensive than in Sweden. Norway got fuckd up prices :S, comparing it to swedish standards anyways.

And c'mon! We're not poor ^o) The thing is. Or the idea is, that if you happen to be poor, you get money from the welfare service. And the money comes from the rich people. What this system does, is simply making sure there isn't one person with 40 billon dollars +, and the rest got to make a living out of 40 bucks a week. So it equals people up, and noone has to be poor. That's the idea. And imo it works fine.

My image of the US is a country were some people are overly rich, and the rest are poor. I don't know if this is true though, but I wouldn't doubt a sec.

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quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic I think that you've misunderstood my post. When I talked about "their argument" I meant the part of the argument, which ought to justify your previously asserted "it's better to be poor in the US than in Europe", which you identified as sections 3.3-4 and pages 15, 22, and 23. That was the argument that I tried to state in clear terms - not the entire report. That the US has a higher GNP than any country in Europe I take as a given. If you read the previous critical posts in this thread you will also find that we are aware of the problems with the GNP and how it distributes over the population. That's been the attacking point all the way.

And again, the "average" that you stress here is the attacking point that we - the critics - have been using all along. We all agree that the average American is better off - problem is how many of those are there.[/quote]

I understand that, my point, however is that they are showing (or not showing in your opinion apparently) how GDP DOES track over the population and showing how many of those there are. That's why the provide information on the lowest quintile's income as it relates to GDP, and they provide data on "poor" American's level of material wealth.

quote:

Now, it may be a economic term, but in theoretical statistics median American is not the same as the average/mean American, so already by stating this question you have taken the leap of faith that I find unsurported. The connection has only been established within the US, and extension beyond is a fallacy.

Oh yeah, my bad, I had actually gone back and tried to correct where I used median but I missed that paragraph... :/ Although the assertion, even though not suppoted here is, I'm almost certain, correct anyway...

quote:

Well, the two tables that are being compared are from 2004 and 1999 (and later in your post you tell me that it's somehow 1993 and not 1999 numbers). That's totally ridiculous.

Actually, look at the table again. The source was published in 1999.

quote:

As to dwelling space, I agree that it is an indicator of poor Americans being "better off" in the humanitarian sense, but as the value of one US-m2 is less than a Europe-m2 it's not an indicator of an economical difference. Measures that indicate subjectively "better off" are dismissed by the authors in the beginning of the report, and indeed it's easy to find other such measures yielding the opposite conclusion (e.g. number of paid vacation days), so the report shouldn't be using dwelling space as an indicator if it wants to be taken as an objective study.

Huh? Just because a pizza costs $40 in Sweeden and $5 in the US there is no indicator of economical difference? The fact that living space in the United states costs less/m2 than in Europe and that the poor in the US can subsequently afford more living space is totally an economic difference. It's about cost of living. As far as I've always known, costs of living... things like housing and food have ALWAYS been econpomic indicators that are perhaps the MOST relevant when discussing poverty...Let me put this another way...

If I can earn $10,000 dollars in the US for 2000 hours of work in the US and can live X lifestyle, but the same $10,000 for the same amount of work only gets me X-Y lifestyle in Europe then I'm better off in the US. Right?

If you want to throw in vacation days, that changes the equation because it reduces the compensation/hour of labor comparison.

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The first is a speculation on what Europeans consider "poor" (and it is even tainted by an uncalled for misuse of the scientific word "probably"). Next sentence is supposed to be a reformulation of this conjecture ("in other words") but is a totally different conclusion. In the last sentence all remaining soothing words (such as "relatively"), which are supposed to make the transition from the initial (unsupported) conjecture seems plausible, are deleted, and we get something that is shockingly controversial yet fully unsupported.

The first assertion isn't absurd, it relies on the assumption that Europeans view poverty in a European context. So if poverty in Europe means having few material goods, no living space, and no disposable income then one would assume a rational but uninformed person would extrapolate that into poverty elsewhere. Or, maybe more simply... A freedom fry (hehehe, j/k) in Britain is called a chip, but a chip in the us is.. well... a chip (crisp). If you told a story about chips to a Londoner who didn't understand the difference then they'd be visualising a french fry in their head while you're thinking of a cheeto. Get it?

The next sentence I read as a reformulation of the entire preceeding paragraph. It simply restates what the authors have been attempting to show: That poverty is a RELATIVE concept. If you try and view poverty in a different region without understanding its proper context then you're not really understanding poverty in that different place. So (and this is my point not theirs) when a Euro talks about poverty in the US, if they don't understand that US-style poverty means something entirely differnt than European-style poverty then they're talking out their ass...

The last sentence is basically a statement of fact, even though you don't seem to believe it. Since poverty is defined, in every nation, relative to itself then being poor compared to a bunch of millionaires isn't the same thing as being poor relative to a bunch of subsistance farmers.

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I thought that the official (UN) definitions of poverty and the like has to do with the amount of dollars the individual has for getting through a day. Obviously a relative definition, such as the one you gave, makes no sense in a comparative study, which the report mimicks.

Well, frankly, if you use the UN definition of poverty then there are probably zero Americans and zero Europeans that qualify as the UN defines it as living off of less than $2 per day. The report, however, is showing us that the definitions ARE relative, and that without understanding the context of the definition across borders then policy makers are missing the point. If Europeans are saying "well we've got 15% poverty and the US has 15% poverty so we're doing just fine," then they're not understanding that our 15% in poverty actually have twice as much wealth as European poor even though both regions are industrialized and super fucking wealthy. This is the cheeto/chip thing again.

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You're making the same "probably" as the report. How do you know how Europeans think of poverty?

First of all, by having talked to a shitload of them and having lived over there for a bit. More importantly, however, it's clear from looking at the statistics presented that Europeans have a different context for poverty. If I live in a place where the poor all live in huts with tin roofs and survive on a diet of cassava, coconut milk and the occassional lizard, then that's my context for poverty. If Europeans (and vice versa) view poverty from an American persepctive instead of a local one, then they've really no understanding of poverty in either place.

But beyond that, you can claim how Europeans think of poverty because Europeans DEFINE poverty in their own nations. If Europeans define poverty as X then you can pretty safely say that they think of poverty as X.

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The reason why I stressed that they *only* included Sweden, was because you had extrapolated the graph to mean that poor people in the US was better off than 40% of people in "the wealthiest nations in Europe".

Ah yeah, I see now that Sweden is in the middle of the pack, my bad... I guess the Scandanavians aren't the only ones thinking they're rich 'eh?

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Nice link, though. A bit worrying that it seems that the Swedes are just below the $25000 limit. E.g. a graph with $20000 would move the Sweden-dot much to the left. I have a feeling that this report has been constructed with the Thomas Aquinas method: A is the conclusion we want - let's find all evidence that supports A. Rather than the scientifically more sound: A or ~A must be the case - let's see if all evidence available supports one more than the other.

And the posts in this thread follow some other model?

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Oh. Didn't know that - just followed the initial article's example and used an arbitrary EU member to further my point as I saw fit. Sorry.

Except that the article's choice wasn't arbitrary, it just appears that way because we're trying to internationalize an article meant for Swedish policy...

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That would be fun. Maybe we could send him the "printable" version of this thread as well.

Heh... I can see the headlines now... TA challenges to NYT to put up or shut up...

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How did you discover that it was 1993 numbers? I think I was pretty thorough in my reading of the report, but I didn't stumble upon that. I think that using 1993 numbers for supporting a claim about 2004 (especially considering that new numbers exist) is pretty unscientific. And in my world it reflects on the entire report when I discover that corners have been cut.

I discuovered it by using the source you provided and having it display the from 1989-1999. Moreover, since the source was dated at 1999 I knew that the numbers couldn't possibly represent 1999's data. But I'm not sure whether more recent numbers do actually exist (I'm sure they're out there, but may not be compiled or available in a single language available to the author, I couldn't find a more recent data set though). Nor would I say that corners have been cut when a 20 page white paper cites other 2-300 page publications instead of going out and finding primary sources and doing the research all over again...

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Originally posted by mps242 I understand that, my point, however is that they are showing (or not showing in your opinion apparently) how GDP DOES track over the population and showing how many of those there are. That's why the provide information on the lowest quintile's income as it relates to GDP, and they provide data on "poor" American's level of material wealth.

And your evidence (and the evidence of the report) is that there's "a lot" of consumer goods in poor households in the US (a) and poor people have more dwelling space in the US (b)? Just to get it clear, once and for all? I'll address these two points here, and then take all the report specific/philosophical ones later.
(a) According to Shakka's comment in the other thread poor US citizens buying a lot of consumer goods isn't necessarily brought about by more money, but could be caused by lack of intelligence. However, let's assume that the poor actually buy this stuff out of a real surplus in their private economy. Then I have two objections to using this as evidence in the manner you suggest: First, the goods listed in the table in the report are cheaper in the US than in Europe, because of high environmental taxes in the EU. Second, the evidence in the report, which should warrant that the poor people in the US has the same amount of consumer goods as the average people in EU is flawed. I'll point out where below.
(b) The price of dwelling space is not the same in the US and Europe. Using the size of the afforded space as a yardstick is as useful as comparing the amount of bought gasoline, the number of bought fish, or the litres of bought vine.

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Originally posted by mps242 Actually, look at the table again. The source was published in 1999.

But the numbers correspond to data from 1993, as you have found out. I thought that the argument attached to this table was flawed, but now I understand how totally awful it really is. It contains numbers from 1993 (maybe earlier for other countries), is presented as being 1999 numbers, and is compared to numbers from 2004. That's both skewed and dishonest - all at once! Fabulous! Why not go all the way and bring in numbers from the middle ages. That would be telling. Damn, at that point Europeans didn't have a lot of mobile phones and microwave ovens. The poor of the US would be much better off than even the richest Europeans.
Another critique, valid even if the numbers were all from the same year, is that there's no numbers on how many of these items are really owned by the poor in Europe. All we get are averages over the entire population. Unless we take homeless people, people in institutions, etc. to be in the pool of poor (which I don't think they are for the US numbers, considering the high levels of refrigerator owners) I think that the poor people in Europe have roughly the same commodities as those who are well off. I don't recall ever visiting anyone within a household who did not posses a refrigerator or TV for instance. But as I have no statistics for that, the issue is in ambeyance.

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Originally posted by mps242 Huh? Just because a pizza costs $40 in Sweeden and $5 in the US there is no indicator of economical difference? The fact that living space in the United states costs less/m2 than in Europe and that the poor in the US can subsequently afford more living space is totally an economic difference. It's about cost of living. As far as I've always known, costs of living... things like housing and food have ALWAYS been econpomic indicators that are perhaps the MOST relevant when discussing poverty...Let me put this another way... If I can earn $10,000 dollars in the US for 2000 hours of work in the US and can live X lifestyle, but the same $10,000 for the same amount of work only gets me X-Y lifestyle in Europe then I'm better off in the US. Right? If you want to throw in vacation days, that changes the equation because it reduces the compensation/hour of labor comparison.

Notice how your equation is based on "lifestyle" which is a soft value. As you seem to realize there's heaps and heaps of factors that you can throw in there (including the compensation/hour). That's why the report dismissed these from the very beginning. And that is why the dwelling space argument is void. If you accept that, then you need to accept that the conclusion is subjective (due to the choice of including only this one factor).

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Originally posted by mps242 The first assertion isn't absurd, it relies on the assumption that Europeans view poverty in a European context. So if poverty in Europe means having few material goods, no living space, and no disposable income then one would assume a rational but uninformed person would extrapolate that into poverty elsewhere.

Again, you apparently have your own impression of what Europeans view as poverty. I have poor family members, have poor friends, used to be very poor myself, and have never ever been to a home without a TV, a fridge, a micro...and the poor people have been some of the most liberal in equipping their kids with cell phones. The things that poor people in Europe most often do not have are things like dryers and clothes washers. And that's neither because they cannot afford to buy it nor because they cannot afford the utility bills - it's because their house/apartment is too small. Same reason why few people in Manhattan have them.

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Originally posted by mps242 Or, maybe more simply... A freedom fry (hehehe, j/k) in Britain is called a chip, but a chip in the us is.. well... a chip (crisp). If you told a story about chips to a Londoner who didn't understand the difference then they'd be visualising a french fry in their head while you're thinking of a cheeto. Get it?

I get your point, but think that it is ridiculous, as both a french fry and a chip are something tangible that you can point to, whereas "poor lifestyle" is a member of a fuzzy set.

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Originally posted by mps242 The next sentence I read as a reformulation of the entire preceeding paragraph.

Ok, so we'll just add bad litterary quality to the attributes of the report. If you're doing a summary you should at least make a cariage return before doing it.

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Originally posted by mps242 It simply restates what the authors have been attempting to show: That poverty is a RELATIVE concept. If you try and view poverty in a different region without understanding its proper context then you're not really understanding poverty in that different place. So (and this is my point not theirs) when a Euro talks about poverty in the US, if they don't understand that US-style poverty means something entirely differnt than European-style poverty then they're talking out their ass...

Assuming that's the point, then I'll have to ask: Why make it? The authors have from the get go tried to prove that the US is better off than the EU. As a step in this argument they try to argue that poor people are better off in the US than in the EU - why then make the concept of poverty a relativistic term? It invalidates any conclusions that they may have the good fortune of making.

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Originally posted by mps242 The last sentence is basically a statement of fact, even though you don't seem to believe it. Since poverty is defined, in every nation, relative to itself then being poor compared to a bunch of millionaires isn't the same thing as being poor relative to a bunch of subsistance farmers.

Fact shouldn't be believed - they should be known and demonstrable. And that sentence is certainly not a fact. We could be two groups of poor people living with no income in countries A and B. In A there furthermore lives a rich bastard with a $10 note. Are you telling me that the poor people in A are better off than the poor people in B?

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Originally posted by mps242 Well, frankly, if you use the UN definition of poverty then there are probably zero Americans and zero Europeans that qualify as the UN defines it as living off of less than $2 per day. The report, however, is showing us that the definitions ARE relative, and that without understanding the context of the definition across borders then policy makers are missing the point. If Europeans are saying "well we've got 15% poverty and the US has 15% poverty so we're doing just fine," then they're not understanding that our 15% in poverty actually have twice as much wealth as European poor even though both regions are industrialized and super fucking wealthy. This is the cheeto/chip thing again.

Well, I don't think that the US and EU have zero people under the UN poverty line, if we take homeless people into account. But assume that they have, then that's no excuse for using the poverty definition you gave (having less than 50% of mean income), which is meaningless. Instead it should be defined as a lower percentile of the population, such as the 10% of the population earning the least amount of money. Then you do not have the syntactically imposed connection between the wealth of a nation and the wealth of its poor citizens.

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Originally posted by mps242 First of all, by having talked to a shitload of them and having lived over there for a bit. More importantly, however, it's clear from looking at the statistics presented that Europeans have a different context for poverty.

How is that clear from the statistics? Except for the dwelling space stats, there's no statistics on poor Europeans.

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Originally posted by mps242 Ah yeah, I see now that Sweden is in the middle of the pack, my bad...

"Sweden is in the middle of the pack"? Where did you pick that up? If you have any figures on the proportion of the population earning less than $25000 for other countries than Sweden (and Denmark) post them here for all to see. Those are pretty much the figures we have wanted to see all along. If you have figures for other income numbers ($10000, $15000, etc.) they are most welcome, as well.

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Originally posted by mps242 I guess the Scandanavians aren't the only ones thinking they're rich 'eh?

Not understood.

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Originally posted by mps242 And the posts in this thread follow some other model?

I guess that you mean the posts not made by you? Well, besides the obvious and import differences in audience and intent, the philosophical difference is that the report and the initiating article are both making a positive claim, whereas people like me are merely in the game of shooting down that claim. The burden of evidence is on the one making the claim, C, as he needs to prove that C is the case, whereas I, as his opponent, do not need to prove ~C. Thus, I can resort to shoot down arguments (which can be done by a single counter example/weakness), whereas the report needs to build a convincing an acceptable argument. By clearly being both predisposed and dishonest/manipulative at places the attempt fails.

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Originally posted by mps242 Except that the article's choice wasn't arbitrary, it just appears that way because we're trying to internationalize an article meant for Swedish policy...

I didn't say it was arbitrary. In fact I think that the choices made were all convenient choices. The article is about Norway, but the author picks negative reports/stats/facts from other parts of Europe and uses them as he sees fit to further his message.

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Originally posted by mps242 I discuovered it by using the source you provided and having it display the from 1989-1999. Moreover, since the source was dated at 1999 I knew that the numbers couldn't possibly represent 1999's data.

Why? Is there some specific date in the year where the number of appliances is counted? (Not being sarcastic - am really curious why this should be?)

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Originally posted by mps242 But I'm not sure whether more recent numbers do actually exist (I'm sure they're out there, but may not be compiled or available in a single language available to the author, I couldn't find a more recent data set though). Nor would I say that corners have been cut when a 20 page white paper cites other 2-300 page publications instead of going out and finding primary sources and doing the research all over again...

I probably used "cutting corners" in the wrong context. By stating that, I meant that accuracy and honesty had been sacrificed on the altar of the political agenda.