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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: willcousa who wrote (330345)	12/18/2002 3:45:57 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Re: "I don't buy that whatever data exists has to understate the case. I think there is a bias to overstate the case as those who care about the data have a political agenda." >>> You'll have to present some evidence for that before I'll believe that the statistics themselves are being manipulated. Census data, U.S.D.O.L. data, data from Wall Street and Banks... There is certainly plenty of political reason to want to manipulate the conclusions... but the data itself would seem to be another matter. RE: "In depth outside studies of the IRS data have found quite unexpected twists when going behind the raw data. One of these is that the group named as the rich, the upper quartile of the data, changes dramatically in composition each year and so does the bottom quartile." >>> Yes, true. But the fact that there is great turnover in the membership of our wealth classes (although a tribute to the ferment of our system), does not itself refute the claim that the gap between the richest and the poorest classes is widening. >>> Until better, or more complete and accurate information is presented, I'll have to stand by my earlier statements and assumptions: "Since accurate statistics on wealth distribution are difficult to come by, many seem - as you pointed out - to be using the income statistics as a surrogate for the less available wealth numbers." "But, here too, many seem to feel that using income stats as surrogates for wealth understate the true extent and magnitude of wealth in the upper reaches of the wealth distribution... since many income flows are sheltered, or only weakly reflected in the public statistics, and some of the total asset and capital base is not reflected in income statistics." "So, I think it is likely safe to conclude, that if the Income statistics report a steady accumulation of wealth in fewer and fewer hands (i.e., the WSJ's "1% owns 40% of the wealth), than that conclusion is likely to prove conservative."