Where is the US economy headed?

@realjohnboy,

sure. There are infinite ways to do it. It just means that the median is closer to the lower values and there are some up-jumpers that pull up the mean. With n=5 the median will always be the 3rd value when the values are sorted lowest to highest. With n=12,000,001 it will be the 6,000,000 value. You could have 5,999,999 folks who range from 1 - 22 and 4,000,000 who range from 22-44 (symmetrical) but the other 1.9 million that have higher numbers will pull up the average without affecting the median. In this case it just turns out that the average was pulled up to 40. You'll oftentimes see this with a bi-modal (two bumps) distribution where the median sits in the lower higher bell but there's another (smaller) bell sitting further down the x-axis on a graph. This second bump will affect the mean but not the median. Here's a random graph of a bimodal distribution. The median here is probably 123 or 124 but the mean would be up in the 140s.

http://www.statcrunch.com/grabimageforreport.php?reportid=10067&image_id=433931

Skewed data will have the same effect on the mean and median with the asymmetrical tail on the upper end pulling up the mean.

Here's a graph that shows the mode (most common value), the median (center value) and the average (x-bar) of a right skewed set of data.

http://www.psychstat.missouristate.edu/introbook/sbgraph/skew6.gif

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@Rockhead,

Rockhead wrote:

just wondering how random random is...

having never met anyone that received one.

Well, if they survey one in every 1000 Americans, that would be a small-enough percentage to explain why you don't know any, yet a large enough number of people to produce solid numbers.

Rockhead wrote:

sorry.

I'll shut up now...

You needn't be sorry. Your questions were perfectly appropriate, and I'm not trying to shut you up.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

I would doubt the 1 in 1000 number. It likely is closer to 1 in 100,000. I would need to dig into it. I got polled by Rasmussen last year, ahead of the races for Congress. First time by a major pollster.

1 Reply

@realjohnboy,

On a second reading of my own source, it turns out that it provides the number itself. They're polling 60,000 households, or about 110,000 individuals. So it's one American in 3,000, not one in 1,000. But the order of magnitude was right. (Remember that this is the Census Bureau we're talking about. It's not comparable with your private, market-research pollsters.)

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Obama's depression is just around the corner...

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@H2O MAN,

H2O MAN wrote:

Obama's depression is just around the corner...

We're in it right now...

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@Miller,

Can you really understand economics without studying political science?

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@realjohnboy,

realjohnboy wrote:

Greece will default. Italy, Portugal and Spain may follow. The interesting thing to me, George, is how will France and Germany respond. Will they deem some banks too big to fail while allowing littler ones to do so?

Probably.

realjohnboy wrote:

Isn't this a replay of what happened in the U.S. a few years ago at the end of the Bush administration and the start of Obama's?

That depends on the manner in which the EU or its member nations choose to rescue those banks. You would see a replay if they just gave them money, no strings attached. But you would see something else if they rescued their banks on the Swedish model: Buy up their equity at rock-bottom market prices, restore confidence in the system, and sell the equity at a profit once confidence is restored.

Sweden has shown that this model works. So has the US, during the savings-and-loans crisis of the 1980s. And, it has the benefit of being equitable: Taxpayers pay the price of the bailout, and they reap the profit in return. The American model of 2008/2009, in which the costs were socialized and the benefits privatized, was a sick joke. Europe shouldn't try telling it again. And given her more regulation-friendly climate, I am cautiously optimistic that she will not.

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Do any of you see the stock market coming to an end soon?

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@reasoning logic,

I don't.

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@spendius,

I think this may be your music!

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

realjohnboy wrote:
Isn't this a replay of what happened in the U.S. a few years ago at the end of the Bush administration and the start of Obama's?

That depends on the manner in which the EU or its member nations choose to rescue those banks. You would see a replay if they just gave them money, no strings attached. But you would see something else if they rescued their banks on the Swedish model: Buy up their equity at rock-bottom market prices, restore confidence in the system, and sell the equity at a profit once confidence is restored.

Perhaps this is already beginning? From today's New York Times:

The New York Times wrote:

PARIS — Europe’s debt crisis hit another milestone on Sunday when the French and Belgian governments agreed to nationalize Dexia, Belgium’s biggest bank, infusing it with billions in taxpayer money after it became the first casualty of the Greek sovereign debt crisis.

Source

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@Miller,

I agree, but many are afraid to admit it.

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@H2O MAN,

You have only seen the tip of this ice burg and hopefully you are still around to see the bottom of it! I think that it will be shown very soon!

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Maybe I am the only one seeing this!

I may be seeing things but at 3 minutes 30 seconds into this video that is aired the day of 911 this man predicts many things that are going to happen as if he could see into the future. Am I alone at seeing this!

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@spendius,

Spendius is this your neighborhood?

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@reasoning logic,

Nah. I keep well away from cities. They are the very last place to be if the **** hits. We can at least dig up roots and drink from the rivers.

Where is the US economy headed?

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