DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post

**Qrhzbadu** · 04-09-2008, 08:08 PM

Originally posted by snoopy369
I'm suggesting that if over the long term, inflation-adjusted income was going up slowly, but at a certain point there was a short-term peak that it fell from somewhat, you could easily suggest that income was dropping when it really was rising in the long term. It's called lying with statistics

Sure, you could draw a line from 20000BC till today, and as long as income stayed above ~$0 you could say long term income is rising for all income brackets. It'd be irrelevant.

It ignores the reality that a decade of falling/stagnant income is a bad thing for an economy. Why do you think the housing bubble was created anyways? Why do you think it's deflating now? It's because owners and prospective owners incomes did not keep up with housing prices. (Which were fueled in part by the "buy in now or be priced out" effect of stagnant/falling income.)

Now that debtors aren't able to make their payments, and new buyers aren't able to afford to purchase, housing prices have collapsed. (Creating myriad problems for those on both sides of ARMs and HELOCs which have their own feedback effects increasing the problems.) The government wants to bail out the lenders (or those who invested in their books), which devalues the currency, and we all end up paying for it.

In that timeframe you want to ignore, Gold has been up to ~$1k, from ~$300. Gas is approaching ~$4/gal from ~$1/gal. The USD is down to less than 3 quarters on the dollar. We all pay. The rich and mildly rich can afford to laugh it off (as the Fed bails them out)... the rest, not so much.

04-09-2008, 08:08 PM	#9
Qrhzbadu Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 444 Senior Member	Originally posted by snoopy369 I'm suggesting that if over the long term, inflation-adjusted income was going up slowly, but at a certain point there was a short-term peak that it fell from somewhat, you could easily suggest that income was dropping when it really was rising in the long term. It's called lying with statistics Sure, you could draw a line from 20000BC till today, and as long as income stayed above ~$0 you could say long term income is rising for all income brackets. It'd be irrelevant. It ignores the reality that a decade of falling/stagnant income is a bad thing for an economy. Why do you think the housing bubble was created anyways? Why do you think it's deflating now? It's because owners and prospective owners incomes did not keep up with housing prices. (Which were fueled in part by the "buy in now or be priced out" effect of stagnant/falling income.) Now that debtors aren't able to make their payments, and new buyers aren't able to afford to purchase, housing prices have collapsed. (Creating myriad problems for those on both sides of ARMs and HELOCs which have their own feedback effects increasing the problems.) The government wants to bail out the lenders (or those who invested in their books), which devalues the currency, and we all end up paying for it. In that timeframe you want to ignore, Gold has been up to ~$1k, from ~$300. Gas is approaching ~$4/gal from ~$1/gal. The USD is down to less than 3 quarters on the dollar. We all pay. The rich and mildly rich can afford to laugh it off (as the Fed bails them out)... the rest, not so much.
	Quote