Forum Post: Political Calculations-AWESOMENESS!!!
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 12, 2012, 3:57 p.m. EST by justhefacts
(1275)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/search?q=inequality
Lots of arguing going on everywhere in OWS about who is doing what to whom, and how so and so is being stomped upon by this or that. But is that REALLY what is happening?
This website not only analyses statistics for you-it also has calculators you can use YOURSELF-to find out whether or not someone's statistical calculations are correct or not.
It's fabulous and I've only begun to explore it. If you want the truth, if you need the facts, if you value KNOWLEDGE over propaganda-you'll love this site too. Everyone else will HATE it I'm sure.
I looked over their minimum wage report and their report on income inequality, and it was a very interesting read. I'm just curious, though: what are the numbers outside the 15-24 group as far as incomes are concerned? I'm fully aware that minimum wage jobs used to be largely the province of kids age 15-24, and that every time the minimum wage goes up certain businesses decide not to hire those kids, and I expected there to be a slight drop in total earnings within that age group due to that happening.
What I'm looking at is the serious possibility that more and more minimum-wage jobs are no longer being held by kids and teenagers trying to put themselves through school or get extra money (independently of what I discussed above), but are being held by adults, in some cases with families, who are going to have to live on that income all their lives. I'm not going to disagree with the numbers they presented, but I would like to see a similar analysis done for the number of non-union positions paying under $15 per hour held by people over 25 to determine how those positions came and went and what impact that had on the economy.
Also, out of curiosity, does anyone know the Gini coefficient associated with a standard normal distribution (bell curve) of incomes? It's not zero by definition, but something tells me it's a good deal below 0.5.
You'd have to define "normal"-since zero is absolutely perfect equality then ANYTHING above zero indicates an inequality of some kind. Are you looking at the "average" distributions of all countries, or just the US etc?
By "normal distribution" I'm referring to the mathematical distribution curve that's considered the ideal bell curve, because I would consider a bell curve to be the best reflection of equality of opportunity (assuming that raw IQ is distributed on a bell curve and all other things are fairly equal), and that for us to have full equality of opportunity our national Gini index should be at to slightly lower than that number across both the country as a whole and across most if not all racial/cultural/regional divisions.
Again, you'd have to be able to measure what "ideal" is....the Gini index is based upon the Lorenz curve-but that's only a measure of probability of distribution and the Gini is only a measure of actual distribution. Here's one of my favorite papers on this topic-(lots of stuff to consider)
Social Mobility and Equality of Opportunity- http://www.yale.edu/sociology/faculty/pages/breen/Geary_march_23_2010.pdf
That was a really interesting paper, and defining those terms in such a manner that we can all agree on metrics of mobility and equality is a wicked problem (not as wicked as attempting to properly implement any version of both, but wicked nonetheless). My comment above was based on the idea that IQ is distributed via a bell curve, and if all other things were equal then income would be distributed on an identical corresponding bell curve. Looking back, it appears that it's not quite that simple and I'm probably going to reply again later with a more complete series of ideas.
Pretty much how he describes it-and in normal understandable terms for idiots like myself who aren't college graduates. It's FAR more complicated than just IQ or "opportunity" and until there is some kind of universal understanding and agreement upon that-we're not going to change much of anything.
I agree, and the whole thing looks rather intimidating at first when you consider it as a problem. Trying to find a completely objective metric with a mode of calculation that nobody can impugn for which any society having achieved the optimization point thereof is perfect is going to be fiendishly difficult and may in fact be impossible. I want to keep trying, but until something is discovered the only approach that I can think of is to address situations where something is obviously and tangibly wrong (think inner-city schools or political corruption or predatory lending) and try to improve those situations while keeping an eye out for side effects. Usually a proper solution arises organically out of such a juggling act, but we have to be willing to admit and embrace the fact that that's what we're doing.
That link was just to one page of their site-there very well could be a report on there somewhere that addresses exactly what you are asking.
The cool thing about the site is that there are HUNDREDS of reports and graphs on it, AND there are calculators YOU can use too. YOU get to input the numbers and run them according to other information they haven't used or considered.
That sounds amazing; doing things like that is what got me As on all my political science papers last semester and I'm really glad they've made an effort to make tools for that more accessible to the general public.
Just amazing! We have another useless Political science major learning how to be a lying, cheating, dirty politician. Just so amazing. You don't need any tools because you are a tool.
Yeah and we got the enemy attacking by mocking a OWS patriot
Hey traitor what do you get for protecting the 1%. Is it enough to sell out the future of your family and friends?
Your Messiah BO sold out your family and friends. Probably your children and grand childrens children at the rate he is pissing off our money. OWS Patriot? Your shitting me right? You are nothing but a fuckstain and have no clue what a patriot is homo. I protect my own like any normal human would occutard. I am in the 1% and living large and seeing how pathetic and upset you Occutards are just makes me glad to be free with lots of money. Greed is good.
You sure fantasize a lot and have unsubstantiated opinions based on your imagination. The only way you could be in the 1% is if you inherited it or won the lottery. It’s obvious you are too fucking stupid to have earned it. Why aren’t you out driving that Ferrari or hanging out in the south of France. Oh I bet you are just toggling back and forth between the gay porn and this site because you are trying to save America from those terrible Occupy demons. That’s it huh I nailed didn’t I 1%.
Ok dreams over. You are just some right wing dipshit that is selling out his family and friends because you drank the Kool aid. Nobody would pay your dumb ass to be a propagandist. You can’t even fuckin’ do that right. So what is it, you on disability, welfare, unemployment or social security? Come on you can tell me.
Phukkin WOW man. That was a mouthfull.
I liked it.
Actually, I'm an electrical engineering and computer science major at MIT who took a political science class for fun to see if I liked it. Not everyone who wants to get a handle on our political system is necessarily looking to go into politics, and not everyone who goes into politics is looking to get rich off the backs of the people. Honestly, some sort of introductory political science or government course should be universal, not because everyone who takes one is shooting for the Hill or the White House, but because a citizenry that knows the rules of the game is going to be far better at sorting out who is or is not adequately serving them.
I majored in Computer science and a college political science class is a joke. What should have been universal is a course on the Constitution and the bill of rights. Our political system is broke and my 16 year old son can see that.
What, like an introduction to Constitutional law and important court cases revolving around interpretations of parts of the Bill of Rights? As far as I'm concerned that should be handled as part of the US history class everyone takes in high school; my AP US teacher did that to a fair degree and I have a book covering fifteen or sixteen important Supreme Court cases dating up through at least the mid-eighties.
Good grief. FACTS matter to most people-and SHOULD to all people. The site we're talking about provides TOOLS to the PUBLIC to use so they can find out exactly when the politicians and the press are lying to them (if they don't already believe in the measurement of "if their lips are moving").
You jumping to conclusions about his "major" or Thrasy's sexuality preferences don't exactly ramp up your own credibility levels. I don't believe YOU represent the 1% with any more accuracy than OWS represents the 99%.
And if you were even remotely intelligent-you would have actually LOOKED at the website and found out that they "take apart" political calculations and EXPOSE them-not the opposite.
But thanks for representing the ASSumers of this world with such passion and determination.