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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (341078)	6/21/2007 7:06:35 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573434

I said that a totally perfect measurement could probably not be done, but notice the "or" in my statement. I gave a simple method, and a theoretically ideal method. The ideal method may be impossible, or at least impractical, but the simple method of adjusting total compensation by the general amount of inflation is both easier, and more accurate, than the method you imply with your statements, which would make an adjustment up for areas of higher inflation, but make no adjustment for areas of lower inflation. If there are multiple potential sources of bias or error, selecting only those that adjust the results in one direction, and not the ones that adjust the results in the other direction, is very likely to be less accurate than not making any adjustments at all.

To: Road Walker who wrote (341078)	6/21/2007 7:36:24 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573434

...If your money income, corrected for inflation, stays constant, but your health care benefits rise to cover the rising cost of health insurance, in recent years, you are better off. Why? The increase in your health care benefits just cancels out the increase in health care costs, but those costs are included in the deflator used for money income. So in fact, you have more purchasing power--your real income has increased. I didn't say that so well. Here's a better way to see it, from analysis by Gary Burtless: www3.brookings.edu cafehayek.typepad.com I'm not sure you can read the figure but here's the gist of it. Between 2000 and 2005, compensation for the average worker rose $3000. But money income was only 29% of the increase. The bulk of the increase was in non-monetary compensation—increases in health insurance, pension contributions and taxes for social security... cafehayek.typepad.com -- Middle Quintile After Tax income bp0.blogger.com engram-backtalk.blogspot.com