Speaking of which the daughter has temporarily dropped out college, delaying the decision until I had actually paid the term's tuition R&B, thus forfeiting about $5K. We gave her Janis' car and replaced it for another $4K. Hannah's moved to Columbus, OH, where she has a one room apt and a waitressing job. (In Columbus you can actually pay for a one room apt with a waitressing job.) She's thinking about going to Puerto Rico to look for work in a few months, mainly, I guess, to practice her Spanish. She says she plans to go back to school next year. Ain't parenthood grand?
How's Ivan? Asked you any embarrassing questions about leather roses? Love to Liza.
M is coming back (not to her house) this week at least for while, to deal with decontamination, etc. She sounds all right, actually. Janis and I are pretty good. I myself am personally stressed out to the max, but what would you expect? --- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Feb 11, 2008, at 12:37 PM, JBrown72073 at cs.com
> wrote:
>
> > This article from Sunday's NY Times claims that
> the bottom fifth of
> > households (by income) spend on average twice what
> they earn.
> > Oddly, the authors don't include 'interest' as an
> expenditure
> > category, but is this anywhere near right or does
> it just reflect a
> > lot of underreporting of income when your income
> is fairly informal
> > to begin with? Or is it just magnifying what it's
> reporting by
> > ignoring assets? (This would help their argument
> that we're all
> > fine and prosperous because we have AC and color
> TV's.)
>
> These guys, Cox & Alm of the Dallas Fed, are serial
> hacks and
> apologists. They did some work on mobility that was
> extremely
> devious, starting their sample with people so young
> that their only
> contribution to mobility was growing up. The
> technique was so crude
> that the only rationale that makes any sense is that
> they knew what
> they wanted to prove and would manipulate the data
> accordingly.
>
> Their source on this article is the BLS's Consumer
> Expenditure
> Survey. The BLS acknowledges that the income data
> are not as reliable
> as the expenditure data, and urges researchers
> interested in income
> to turn to other sources (excerpt below). Note the
> preposterously
> large gap between income and expenditures for the
> middle and top
> fifths - you have to wonder how our national savings
> rate is 0%.
>
> It's also very devious to emphasize gadgets like
> VCRs and DVD
> players, whose prices have been dropping like rocks.
> You'll notice
> that the words "housing," "college tuition," and
> "health care" don't
> appear in their chart.
>
> Doug
>
> ----
>
> <http://www.bls.gov/cex/csxfaqs.htm#q20>
>
> > 20. Why do average annual expenditures exceed
> income for some of
> > the demographic groups? How can consumer units
> spend more than they
> > earn?
> >
> > Data users may notice that average annual
> expenditures presented in
> > the income tables sometimes exceed income before
> taxes for the
> > lower income groups. For data prior to 2004, the
> primary reason for
> > that is believed to be nonresponse to questions
> about income, a
> > common problem in household surveys. The average
> incomes shown in
> > the published tables for 2003 and earlier are
> derived from
> > information provided by complete income reporters
> (consumer units
> > that provide information for at least one of the
> major sources of
> > their income, such as wages and salaries,
> self-employment income,
> > or retirement income). However, even complete
> income reporters may
> > not have provided a full accounting of all income
> from all sources.
> > Research has shown that some complete reporter
> consumer units
> > classified in the lower income classes have
> expenditure levels that
> > are more typical of upper income consumer units.
> Their expenditures
> > raise the average expenditure levels of the income
> class in which
> > they are classified.
> >
> > Beginning in 2001 for the Interview Survey and
> 2004 for the Diary
> > Survey, the income data include information
> collected from
> > respondents using income ranges or brackets—for
> example $2,000-
> > $2,499—in addition to discrete income amounts, as
> provided in the
> > past. Respondents who are unable or unwilling to
> provide a specific
> > dollar amount may be able or willing to estimate a
> range for their
> > incomes. The use of bracketing in data collection
> provides more
> > reliable income estimates to the extent that it
> increases the
> > percentage of households providing income data.
> >
> > In addition, starting in 2004, the Consumer
> Expenditure Survey uses
> > imputation to fill in missing values for income
> data. The published
> > tables now include income data from all consumer
> units—not just
> > complete reporters. (See FAQ 21.) Income
> imputation has reduced the
> > gap between income and expenditures when negative,
> and increased it
> > when positive. For example, in 2003 (the last year
> prior to
> > imputation), expenditures exceed income on average
> for all complete
> > reporters who report less than $40,000 in income.
> In 2004,
> > expenditures exceed income on average for all
> consumer units for
> > whom less than $30,000 is reported or imputed.
> Similarly, in 2003,
> > income exceeds expenditures for total complete
> reporters by less
> > than $8,400; in 2004, income exceeds expenditures
> for all consumer
> > units by more than $11,000.
> >
> > However, there are reasons why expenditures exceed
> income for the
> > lower income groups despite the use of imputed
> income data.
> > Consumer units whose members experience a spell of
> unemployment may
> > draw on their savings to maintain their
> expenditures. Self-employed
> > consumers may experience business losses that
> result in low or even
> > negative incomes, but are able to maintain their
> expenditures by
> > borrowing or relying on savings. Students may get
> by on loans while
> > they are in school, and retirees may rely on
> savings and investments.
> >
> > 21. I understand that, beginning with publication
> of the 2004
> > tables, the Consumer Expenditure Survey results
> include imputed
> > income data. What does this mean for the typical
> user?
> >
> > Nonresponse is a common problem in household
> surveys, particularly
> > for questions regarding income. Nonresponse means
> that the
> > respondent either does not know, or refuses to
> provide, the
> > information requested. Prior to publication of the
> 2004 tables, the
> > Consumer Expenditure Survey handled nonresponse to
> income questions
> > by publishing income data for complete income
> reporters only. To be
> > classified as a complete income reporter, the
> respondent had to
> > provide a value for at least one major source of
> income for the
> > consumer unit. However, not all “complete”
> reporters provided a
> > full accounting of income for all sources for
> which receipt was
> > reported.
> >
> > Starting in 2004, the Consumer Expenditure Survey
> introduced
> > multiple imputation to fill in the blanks
> resulting from
> > nonresponse to income questions. In this method
> several estimates
> > are made each time the respondent reports the
> receipt of, but no
> > value for, a particular source of income. The
> estimates are made
> > based on characteristics of the member or consumer
> unit for which
>
=== message truncated ===
____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ