6 thoughts on “Weekend reflections”

  1. I have a question rather than a reflection. Wikipedia quotes the (Toronto) Globe and Mail saying that average wealth of a person in the US is $144,000. That is, if all the “wealth” was distributed evenly, everyone would have that amount.

    I’m sure there’s a lot wrong with just those two sentences, but I have two specific questions. First, is ‘average wealth’ definable sufficiently well to make the term useful? Second, can it be calculated? For example, how do you handle debt? Also, $144,000 sounds far too precise to me.

  2. “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

    this will seem familiar, but not quite right. it has appeared twice in the ‘letters’ to the sydney morning herald with ‘by the people’ left out, and no editorial note. here in oz democracy is not rule by the people. i was astounded at the first misquote, bemused by the second.

    why would people wilfully say that democracy was not rule by the people? many reasons, no doubt, ignorance being the most common one. shame would be another one, part of the cultural cringe.

    the most pernicious is newspeak, the diseducation of ozzies to keep them barefoot and in the kitchen. until ozzies become aware of what democracy is, they cannot strive to attain it. the pollies and their corporate co-conspirators are well aware that ignorance of the general public is their best tool of dominance.

    consequently, when the chatterati speak of australian democracy, they not only reveal their own ignorance, they are participating in the manipulation of the majority who not only have never read the constitution, but often don’t know there is one.

    wake up, people- your masters don’t have your welfare in view, they are flat-out looking after themselves.

  5. GraemeW,

    I don’t think it is hard to get a precise figure. The difficulty would be in getting an accurate figure. It would be good if such figures included error bars.

    Regards,
    Terje.

  6. G.W.

    Wealth:= Monetary value of marketable assets minus monetary value of liabilities. (ie net of debt.

    Average wealth per ‘person’:= Sum of wealth of each ‘person’ divided by the total number of ‘persons’.

    ‘Person’. One would have to look up how children are treated in the particular statistics. My best guess is that those children who have independent wealth (ie inherited at birth or something like this) will be counted via a guardian.

    Useful? For what? By itself a statistic on average wealth is not very meaningful for the daily affairs of people. For example, the average wealth may be $144,000 (working in thousands of dollars)and all of the wealth is held by 1 person has clearly a different practical meaning for n-1 persons from the information that each of the n persons has approximately $144,000.

    $144,000? A nice number. It reads 1000 times a gross.

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