Right and Wrong

Daniel Gross attempts to explain the real misuse of two math Concepts: Averaging and the median. He points out, but not with great clarity, that letting the Bush Tax Cuts expire would not affect median Household Income drastically, though higher Income levels would experience the joys of Tax levels consistent with their lower Income compatriots. A nice Bar Graph would explain everything, but I don’t do graphs (Mickey Mouse won’t help me with the danged things). The best view would be vertical bars denoting total Income for each Income level, sided by a bar denoting the total taxes paid (Federal, State, and Local) on Average by each Income group. Try it sometime: Mickey Mouse loves you!

Ritholtz at The Big Picture explains effectively that Retailers received a Holiday which they did not appreciate. The telling point was that though the Store traffic in December was as great as in 2005, the actual Sales were down 1% on average purchase size. This indicates to myself that Consumers are ignoring Advertising, and searching out real value. I wonder how much additional Advertising was paid for this year. Check early Year reduction in Advertising budgets, a clear indication of a waning economy.

Dean Baker criticizes the Washington Post’s use of Private Accounts numbers in the Social Security debate, which had already been proven to be dubious last Year. No One, in fact, truly believes that Private Accounts could have a major impact in SS security issues, claiming only a doubling or so of current Interest rates on the Fund. What exists as the real issue remains the vast Windfall gains of Fund managers in their self-award of Salaries, Benefits, and Bonuses to themselves. Republicans think that about 0.03% of total Labor should receive these Windfall gains, which would eventually constitute about 2% of all Funds deposited with them; Democrats unexcited about this, unless of course, Political Campaign contributions increase proportionally. What bothers me is the suspicion that what little Problem exists will be finally settled by a Payroll tax increase anyway. lgl