Mike M. is right to single out the following passage as a particularly egregious attempt on the part of a right-wing textbook writer to misrepresent reality. > However, I came accross this particularly ridiculous statement in one of the > chapters I'm reading: "The median income of all individual stockholders is > not dramatically higher than the median income of all American families." This statement is simultaneously breathtaking in its irrelevance and yet unavoidably suggestive of significantly misleading conclusions. First, the irrelevance: a lot of people own a little bit of stock, especially if the above sentence allows inclusion of ESOP programs, mutual funds, or holdings through pension funds. But so what? This statement doesn't have any implications whatsoever for the distribution of wealth or income. The irrelevance of the statement is compounded by the vague qualifier "not dramatically higher". Relative to what? Now, as to the suggestiveness: since the statement, taken by itself, implies nothing of significance, people are likely to read more into it, just in giving the author the benefit of the doubt that he is not mouthing irrelevancies. Perhaps it suggests that the distribution of stocks or the income therefrom is not that skewed? But any such suggestion is horsecrap. The richest 1% of families in the US holds 49% (!) of all publicly held stock; the richest 10% hold 85% of all stocks. And in 1992 only 14% of individuals over 15 received dividends. [Data are from the CPE's New Field Guide to the US Economy]. Paints a little different picture, no? Gil
