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

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (499166)	11/26/2003 2:34:05 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Gee, Liz, you're being particularly thick lately. What don't you get? I showed you BLS figures for average hourly wages (real dollars) and the ECI that clearly disprove your claims, whether you want to pick 1990, 1993 or 2000. Let me ask you something - if you develop a software application that consistently crashes whenever you try to use it, do you insist to your boss or customer that it is perfectly fine and they are the ones wrong? Now you say that the ECI is NOT a "delta", but rather an index of wage levels? Have you even bothered to look it up on the BLS web site to see what they say it is? Here: The Employment Cost Index (ECI) is a quarterly measure of changes in labor costs. It is one of the principal economic indicators used by the Federal Reserve Bank. The following are some of the main features of the data: * Shows changes in wages and salaries and benefit costs, as well as changes in total compensation * Presents data as a total for all workers and separately for private industry and for State and local government workers * Reports compensation changes by industry, occupational group, union and nonunion status, region, and metropolitan/nonmetropolitan status * Provides seasonally adjusted and unadjusted data * Presents historical data on changes in labor costs * Uses fixed weights to control for shifts among occupations and industries bls.gov What's more, Liz, this is a nominal dollar measure, so unless we were in a seriously deflationary environment - i.e. wage deflation, not just output price deflation - perhaps a severe depression akin to the 1930s, nominal wage changes will generally be positive, even in a recession. That's why, last night, I gave you the inflation numbers to match up with nominal ECI figures - so you could see, even if you choose to ignore the REAL hourly wage numbers the BLS publishes, that REAL wages ARE HIGHER NOW than in 2000, 1993, 1990, or whatever period you come up with next. Don't be a dope, Liz - you've been absolutely, totally, definitively proven WRONG. Insisting otherwise doesn't change a thing.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (499166)	11/26/2003 3:35:00 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 769670

We have no acceleration in wage growth, in fact wages are starting to go below 1990 levels Is that a quote from you or is it not? Yes or no? That is what I am disputing. "your interpretation of those numbers is wrong" But your interpretation IS wrong. You apparently fail to understand the difference netween "slope of a function" and "value of a function".

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (499166)	11/26/2003 3:35:31 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 769670

We have no acceleration in wage growth, in fact wages are starting to go below 1990 levels Is that a quote from you or is it not? Yes or no? That is what I am disputing. "your interpretation of those numbers is wrong" But your interpretation IS wrong. You apparently fail to understand the difference between "slope of a function" and "value of a function". Lizzie, the answer to being wrong isn't to insist you are right in ther face of clear evidence to the contrary. The answer is to say "Sorry. I made a mistake.", then mull over the real evidence and go on from there.