Monday, March 02, 2020

More Saved Links

I am coming to the end of these, also. I am well into 2019 at this point, though the bookmarks sometimes dart back to the past.

Google disproportionately links to CNN, NYT, WaPo.  You knew that, but it's good to have some audit numbers. August 2019

Related:  Even when the Washington Post publishes a data-driven op-ed from a writer at 538, stating that gun-control measures are not likely to help and may do harm, they have to lead with a gun-control video. It is an intentional method of creating interference with your new learning, and is deeply dishonest. October 2017

First Yale, then Duke.  Psychiatrist believes Trump could be responsible for more deaths than Mao, Stalin, and Hitler.  He doesn't say how, exactly.  I would have been interested where he thought those deaths were going to come from.  This is not just some guy, some random prescriber mouthing off at lunch about his political beliefs.  Duke is is top medical school. He was able to secure a national TV audience.  Well, it's CNN, which nobody watches anymore.  It has become the Time magazine of television. So maybe I shouldn't worry so much about his national audience after all.  August 2019.

Poorest 20% of Americans are richer than the median of most European nations. Two things to always mention when national poverty numbers are cited:

First, advocates give you the numbers of what the lowest quintile has before government help. We spend a lot of money to help them, and they aren't so poor after.  The mentally ill and others who live mostly on disability income and food stamps do have it very hard. Those checks aren't large.

Second, you get different numbers about what people have when you measure consumption instead of income, and these also point to less poverty.  The reasons for the difference are varied. People rack up debt.  They are given help and gifts from friends, relatives, and charities. They work under the table.  They have income from crime.

The article cites some less-known reasons why Europeans are not as well off as we assume, which are worth the read. August 2019.

7 comments:

Christopher B said...

Poorest 20% of Americans are richer than the median of most European nations.

I wonder if some of the confusion about this rests on the fact that when people say 'Europe' they often think or mean France, Germany, or Scandinavia, depending on the context.

The OECD average includes such nations as Slovenia, Republic of Slovakia, South Korea, Estonia, Poland, and Hungary. Those aren't Bangladesh-level economies but they're still not at the level of the US or northern Europe.

Sam L. said...

"Google disproportionately links to CNN, NYT, WaPo." None of which I trust.

"Washington Post publishes a data-driven op-ed..." I despise, detest, and distrust the WaPoo. The NYT, also.

"Psychiatrist believes Trump could be responsible for more deaths than Mao, Stalin, and Hitler." That boy's crazy.

Christopher B said...

While there might be something going on under the table regarding Google's linking practices, from my understanding the basic algorithm for link ranking depended heavily on counting links from other sites to a particular page, as well as page views. That might have changed but I doubt it. It would be reasonable to expect that popular media sites would receive high rankings regardless of their ideology. Google isn't trying to be unbiased.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I think that is fair. They link what everyone else links. That this may give them a skewed result is not a problem they seem to want to solve. Perhaps they shouldn't. They can shrug and say that they are reflecting, not driving, the news.

james said...

The study seemed to discuss consumption of goods and services in terms of dollars. But what are the relative costs of living?

For example, thanks to the wonders of VAT, a washing machine is substantially more expensive across the pond, so if the poor man is spending money on a machine here the benefit from his dollars is magnified compared to the same spending there.

What about housing costs? [And housing locations matter too--over here the poor tend to be rural or inner city (though they are being exported to suburbs and nearby cities--Greyhound urban renewal), while there the inner cities are supposed to be the richer areas and some of the suburbs are poor.] I'd guess more crowded=>higher priced. certainly smaller.

We hear about the wonders of medical care over there (when available), and since most care seems to be the simple stuff that probably makes a difference.
The relative costs of education might figure in on the European side too.

I'm not sure how all the factors shake out. Do you know who has tried to do a detailed comparison?

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I do not. Let me look around when I have the chance. I imagine there are multiple ways to slice this, and we will have to choose which we find most persuasive.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

This is a bit more detailed. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/06/01/astonishing-numbers-americas-poor-still-live-better-than-most-of-the-rest-of-humanity/#a2391c154ef0

This is a quick visual https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/index