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Old 05-18-2010, 04:45 PM   #33 (permalink)
dogzilla
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Location: New York
Quote:
Originally Posted by Derwood View Post
So one person's experience is more valuable than 100 surveys worth of data?

You failed Statistics 101, didn't you.....
No, I didn't fail statistics 101, Nor did I fail statistics 102, or 201.

This particular article raises a number of questions about the validity of the research/survey. In particular the background references to the source of the data, the methodology for selecting the sample, etc.

As noted previously, the sample size is approximately 2000. How reliable is that sample in extrapolating that to 300,000,000 people? What was the economic backgrounds of the people? What was the educational background of those people? How much financial education did each of the participants have? What background information on their lifestyle choices was researched? What sort of information was gathered about each person's attitudes and behavior towards savings, spending and use of credit? Was the number of participant reasonably balanced between races at each level of economic background? What other factors were considered in explaining the difference in wealth between the races besides the assertions made in the article that taxation rates and interest rates on credit were the factors responsible for this?

If you're looking at who benefits from what tax breaks, lower income people benefit from earned income credits, child care credits, and a number of other tax credits which higher income people do not benefit from.

To make a blanket statement, as this article does that these are the reasons for the difference in net worth is not believable. To make a blanket statement as this article does that people with equivalent incomes but different races have differing net worth only because of their race and not because of other factors like spending choices and decisions about savings and investments is not believable.

I'll grant you there are differences in income between race. I'll grant you that there are cases where minorities have been discriminated against because of their race or ethnicity. Where's there's credible proof of discrimination, that should be fixed. I believe in equal opportunities and equal rights for everyone. I don't believe in special rights to make up for past offenses, especially when those offenses started to be fixed fifty years ago.
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