English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwigнt

00:04

Oh, they deleted @Kosmonaut's Alot!

Feb 9 '11 at 16:33, by Kosmonaut

And they always say, what you put on the Internet stays there forever.

Bollocks to that.

@Mitch in nine years' time, your Alot, too, will go the way of the dodo.

Alot years must be like dog years.

Mitch

01:01

@RegDwigнt 😢

i wonder if that's deleted on SE or it's a link and the link is rotten.

CowperKettle

02:24

So, who is President?

It's great to have actual elections instead of Putin's circus.

CowperKettle

02:48

CowperKettle

03:02

@Robusto Cool!

I'm still trying to learn English..

CowperKettle

04:22

So, who is President?

CowperKettle

04:39

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, link at beginning of body, pattern-matching product name in body, pattern-matching website in body, +3 more (433): One Shot Keto Canada -Shark Tank, Work, Side Effect and Where to purchase by user404544 on english.SE

CowperKettle

Very close

Cerberus

05:03

Yeah, it's just far too early to tell...

CowperKettle

05:27

Why don't they switch the system to popular vote? It's simpler

Who gains more votes, wins.

CowperKettle

05:45

Word of the day: cline ( a measurable gradient in a single character (or biological trait) of a species across its geographical range)

> For example, it has been observed that in Australia, birds generally become smaller the further towards the north of the country they are found. In contrast, the intensity of their plumage colouration follows a different geographical trajectory, being most vibrant where humidity is highest and becoming less vibrant further into the arid centre of the country.

Xanne

06:41

@CowperKettle U.S. history. It’s a federation of sovereign states. Few countries select a head of state by popular vote, also.

Faheem Mitha

07:08

@Færd Did you see that recent link I posted? Youtube talk by Glenn Greenwald?

@Mitch There is a popular rumor to that effect, yes. Though it might just be urban legend.

@Robusto Did you take that photo?

@CowperKettle I don't get it.

Anxiously watching the results come in. This is fun.

Færd

07:34

@FaheemMitha No. But I've heard he's going out of his mind.

Faheem Mitha

@Færd Going out of his mind? I don't follow.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle Santatown will probably vote Democrat

Two Towers music ensues

Hmm, the wide empty space is probably something that doesn't load because I'm in Iran?

Oh hmm, it loaded. Just a giant poorly-colored map.

Færd

08:09

@FaheemMitha He's been discouraging people from "lesser of two evils"-voting for Biden and calling for the left to hold back their vote so they gain some sway in the party and the Democrats don't take them for granted, even if it leads to T's reelection. And going on Fox to whine about the conditions at the Intercept? That's going too far, I think.

@FaheemMitha There has been a heated debate on the online left about this, with people like Chomsky on the obvious rationality of voting for Biden and people like Glenn for using the election as a political tool. Have a listen:

Noam Chomsky on the Bad Faith podcast

►

Faheem Mitha

08:31

@M.A.R. Santatown?

@Færd I'm familiar with those debates. They've been going on a long time. But I was just talking about a video he posted about military finance. Pretty interesting.

People should vote for the candidates of their choice. It seems like a hard concept for the Democrats to grasp. But then again, like most (or all) of the people who run the United States, they don't really believe in democracy.

@Færd I don't think "whining" is an appropriate term. I saw a video where he was discussing this on "the Hill", whatever that is.

@Færd No, the point is that people should vote for the candidate of their choice. Again, that's how democracy works.

Not that the US understands much about this, despite constantly congratulating themselves on their own wonderfulness.

Færd

@FaheemMitha That's one part of how democracy works. Just as one's entitled to one's vote, one's also entitled to trying to persuade people to vote this or that way, or criticize them for voting irresponsibly. No contradicitons here.

@FaheemMitha Ah okay.

M.A.R.

08:59

@FaheemMitha Where Santa lives

Faded Giant

@M.A.R. Rovaniemi?

M.A.R.

Is that an Italian car I haven't heard of

Faded Giant

It's the official home town of Santa Claus.

M.A.R.

Finland huh. I'm inclined to think they're smart enough to distance themselves from anything US-politics related

CowperKettle

> The new rapid coronavirus test set to be trialled across the city of Liverpool is 99.9 per cent accurate, according to a government scientific advisor, raising hope that it will become a “powerful new weapon” in the fight against Covid-19.

More than 2,000 members of the armed forces will arrive in the city on Thursday to help deliver thousands of what ministers describe as “rapid turnaround” tests, which can deliver a result in 15 minutes.

independent.co.uk/news/health/…

A 15-minute test with a 99.9% accuracy? That would be amazing.

M.A.R.

09:07

I guess I should be happy for the UK

But we ain't getting nothin'

I don't even know where our Covid tests come from

CowperKettle

Don't you have express tests sold in pharmacies in Iran? We do have them.

They sell for about 2000 rubles

M.A.R.

Not that I know of, but I know fuck all about what's going on out there

CowperKettle

We have private testing companies, which will arrive to your flat and test you for 4000 rubles.

M.A.R.

I barely know what's happening in the kitchen

There's a new study that even patients that recover from Covid get a median 4.5 pt decrease in IQ?

CowperKettle

I know what's happening in the kitchen

M.A.R.

09:09

I've heard of it somewhere and I can't remember

CowperKettle

Ah, those new studies, they are half-baked.

Don't believe half-baked, rushed studies.

M.A.R.

Most Covid studies are at the moment

CowperKettle

I'm translating an interesting study, a case report published under the CC-BY license, which makes it open for republishing, translation etc.

mdpi.com/2076-3425/10/11/762/htm

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle You're really crazy about this folate deficiency thing, aren't you?

Most diseases that have to do with the deficiency of the key enzymes or cofactors are pretty serious

Tetrahydrofolate is a key cofactor in purine synthesis

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. It's interesting

I know, there are thousands of diseases of deficiency.

M.A.R.

09:21

So apparently the Alzheimer's blood test kits are now in the market?

Faheem Mitha

09:50

@Færd I can post the link if you are interested.

@M.A.R. So... the North Pole?

Færd

@FaheemMitha Yes, if you please.

.

Is it not strange to you that German helfen should take an indirect object in the dative rather than a direct object?

RegDwigнt

10:55

@Cerberus seeing funny headlines now saying that Trump won the swing state of Texas. They are still calling it a swing state even though it hasn't actually swung.

Damn journalists with their fake news.

Matt E. Эллен

fake news
fake news
readn't all about it

Xanne

11:28

@RegDwigнt Another example of the triumph of hope over experience.

In any case, the pollsters need some new methods.

CowperKettle

12:04

@M.A.R. Yes, MedScape just recently posted an article about this, but I still haven't read it

A huge step ahead

List of United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote

There have been five United States presidential elections in which the successful presidential candidate did not receive a plurality of the popular vote, including the 1824 election, which was the first U.S. presidential election where the popular vote was recorded. In these cases the successful candidate secured less of the national popular vote than another candidate who received more votes, either a majority, more than half the vote, or a plurality of the vote.In the U.S. presidential election system, instead of the nationwide popular vote determining the outcome of the election, the president...

> It is important to note that the U.S. Constitution does not require states to even hold a popular vote. The legislature of a state could assign electors without regard to the popular vote or if no popular vote was conducted.

"Pennsylvania and Michigan are still undecided"

CowperKettle

13:22

Mitch

13:33

@FaheemMitha It took me a -long- time to get it. Presumably the entity you expect to see on a throne in a bunch of clouds is 'God', but instead you see a ... 'Dog', therefore everyone calling it 'God' must be flipping around letters in what they read, which isone symptom of dyslexia.

Matt E. Эллен

So Santa was Satan all along!

Mitch

Every inference is strained though because I see a particular breed of dog, I am not particularly used to seeing pictures of God on a throne (it's usually St Peter up in the clouds at his gates), and an individual misreading a word (like in dyslexia) has little to do with -everyone- reading one word as written.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Oh, I see. A bit too clever for me, I'm afraid.

Mitch

It's not that clever because the dog/god reversal just isn't that much.

CowperKettle

Thus far, Trump wins.

There are 67 voters in the rose-colored states

More than enough for winning.

Faheem Mitha

13:44

@Færd theintercept.com/2020/07/09/…

I don't know if this is what you were expecting, but I think it's a really good article, and accompanying video. And very informative. Did you know who decides military funding in Congress? I didn't.

I already posted this link in this room.

I also had no idea Cheney's daughter was active in US politics, let alone that she was part of decisions about US military funding.

Actually, I barely registered that Cheney had children.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Yes.

Faheem Mitha

Those clips from the House Armed Forces Committee are pretty amazing.

@Robusto It's a good photo. Sorry to hear that you have such neighbors. You live in Colorado?

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle Noice, check out Iran

I actually presumed this would be a pretty normal thing?

Robusto

@FaheemMitha New Mexico.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Oh.

Cerberus

13:55

@FaheemMitha What is the most salient point?

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus The most salient point of the...? Article or video or something else?

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha Article.

It is a bit long, and the first couple of paragraphs didn't trigger my interest.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Ah. Well, I think Greenwald's main takeaway is that despire the Democrat and Republicna pretense at being at loggerheads, when it comes to something really important like military funding, both sides are completely on board. This particular article was about them giving 750 billion to the military in the middle of the pandemic. It's worth noting, at Greenwald points out, that the military didn't actually ask for the money.

It's nice to have such good friends, isn't it?

Cerberus

OK, thanks.

Isn't that money just part of the normal money that goes to the military?

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus It's well worth reading. Will only take you a few minutes, and Greenwald is a good writer, and speaker. He does tend to repeat himself a bit to drive a point home, but it personally doesn't bother me. YMMV.

@Cerberus I'm not sure what "normal" money is.

You realise it's considerably more than everyone else on the planet spends on their military put together?

That's also covered in the video, I think. Definitely worth watching.

Cerberus

14:08

> For Fiscal Year 2020 (FY2020), the Department of Defense's budget authority is approximately $721.5 billion ($721,531,000,000). However, total U.S. military spending is estimated to be around $934 billion in 2020-21.

So I praesume those 700 billion you mentioned are part of this sum, not additional budget?

Faheem Mitha

It's also worth noting that the US doesn't actually have the money. They have record deficits.

Cerberus

Because a doubling of the military budget would be big news.

M.A.R.

I think the big takeaway is that politicians do their thing when it's going to be to the benefit of lobbyists, even if it is to the detriment of people, and in that there's not much bipartisanship.

Cerberus

But how is it different from other years?

Faheem Mitha

Some entertaining basic arithmetic for anyone so inclined. Take the national debt.Divide it by the population of the US. See what number you come up with. Then do an estimate of the actual average savings of Americans.

M.A.R.

14:10

But the author does seem inclined to downplay the importance in the difference between the ideologies being preached just because they're 'fake'

What they're saying is bad people from both parties do whatever they want, those issues are not bipartisan.

Faheem Mitha

I lived in the US for a while. Here's the thing. Most Americans don't have any money.

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha Putin's propaganda has been entertaining Russians with this arithmetic for the last decade

Cerberus

Of course, we know all that.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle How educational of him.

Cerberus

But I'm wondering what's new about this.

M.A.R.

14:11

But they're also mischaracterizing the outrages Trump's administration has caused as the media fussing over a single tweet in order to sensationalize.

CowperKettle

Several of my friends told me in 2014 that "the USA will soon collapse due to its huge national debt"

It might collapse, but that will be for the best. It will learn to live without borrowing too much.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus The normal budget is huge, and they occaisonally give extra money to the military as they are inclined. If you are asking me, I don't know the details. But just compare it to what the rest of the planet is spending, and also take a look at the US deficit. Also see my comments about how much it translates to per person.

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha Don't americans have any savings?

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Mostly, no. I suggest taking a look online. That sort of information should be public.

I lived in the US for a while. It was one of the things that struck me most.

CowperKettle

I'm not an economist so I'm totally not qualified to judge whether the US economy will collapse. I just don't believe Putin's propadanda. Even when what it tells sounds plausible, I's still disinclined to believe it.

M.A.R.

14:14

Honestly I never understood what the implications of this debt are.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Well, one knows it's happening. But one does not typically know any details. Nor does one actually ever see any of the discussions, as helpfully summarized by Greenwald in the video.

@M.A.R. The same as any other debt. Debt is debt.

M.A.R.

What would a USA with less or more debts look like?

Faheem Mitha

Though if you are the US, I guess you get to ignore it for awhile.

@M.A.R. You're asking the wrong person, if you are asking me.

M.A.R.

Like Cowp, I'm told how bad this debt is constantly by my own media.

@FaheemMitha Just thinking loudly

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Of course it's bad. For the people of the United States, not for the people incurring the debts. Bless their black little hearts.

I suppose everyone here is aware that the US dollar is the world's reserve currency?

Also, just curious. Does everyone know about the Bretton Woods agreement, and how Nixon tore it up? I.e. took the United States off the gold standard?

M.A.R.

14:19

@FaheemMitha I know that it supposedly affects Iran's economy very badly because of we rely on it to sell oil.

CowperKettle

14:33

@FaheemMitha In 1996, I wrote a paper in my university in Tuymen about this. The annual kind of paper, about 30 pages, which you should write and then defend before a group of teachers, to get a "pass" mark for your Macroeconomy course.

I don't remember what it's called in English.

A, found it.

"Term paper"

Term paper

A term paper is a research paper written by students over an academic term, accounting for a large part of a grade. Merriam-Webster defines it as "a major written assignment in a school or college course representative of a student's achievement during a term". Term papers are generally intended to describe an event, a concept, or argue a point. It is a written original work discussing a topic in detail, usually several typed pages in length, and is often due at the end of a semester. There is much overlap between the terms: research paper and term paper. A term paper was originally a writt...

It was about the history of international monetary systems.

Later, in another university in 1999 we were told about the same story with the USA leaving the gold standard and "hogging up" the world's reserve system by printing any volumes of banknotes they wished.

In 1999, the teacher was a former Soviet functionary who hated the USA and so he was telling this all in lurid details.

Also he told us about how the USA dominated the World Monetary Fund, and so on, and so forth. Those treacherous Americans, those poor Russians.

Every time my father hears any talk about the USA being on the brink of a catastrophe, he says "fuck them (i.e. the propagandists), I've been spoonfed this bullshit since my childhood"

2

Robusto

@CowperKettle A wise man, your father.

RegDwigнt

15:26

CNN exit polls: How voters shifted during four years of Trump

A higher percentage of latinos and blacks of both genders have voted for Trump than four years ago.

Well, it's the exit polls, and it's CNN, so I guess that must come with like fifty asterisks.

But still interesting.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle The propagandists aren't necessarily wrong. But brinks can go on for a long time, especially from the perspective of a human life.

The Roman Empire was in bad trouble for many years before it finally collapsed. And these are faster-moving times.

@CowperKettle As a rule of thumb, many bad things (not necessarily everything, of course) that you hear about the United States are correct. And it's easy enough to check on them, with the help of the Internet. Wikipedia has a lot of useful information if you know where to look. And there are individuals who've put a lot of effort into writing up stuff. For example, Noam Chomsky is a mine of admittedly unsystematic information.

The US media in general is really very very good at ignoring the more unpleasant aspects of their country. In line with most other places, I suppose.

M.A.R.

15:50

@CowperKettle Oh, I wish we had these

@RegDwigнt So @Færd can claim a big moral victory now, I suppose.

@FaheemMitha Well it's like, "people don't wanna hear any of that much". In a sense, I guess it would be true. If I find out tomorrow that my government is funding so-and-so terrorists (talking about the real definition here, not just the "Muslim criminal" definition), how much am I going to be able to affect that? Not much. And, for most people, by extension, if they can't change it, they don't wanna know about it.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha That's not how economics works. The national debt (and deficit, the interest payments on that debt) is of the US government as a single institution to whatever banks and investors are lending them money, and these banks and investors are not part of the US government (this is the case for most countries). The income of the US government is mostly in business and income taxes. So to equate the US gov debt with personal income or savings, is missing a lot.

Yes, they are related, but its not one-to-one as you seem to imply.

And yes, an (unspecified) lot of Americans don't have much savings, but 'most' seems an exaggeration. And covid-19 has eaten up a lot of that. But what the actual numbers are I don't know.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch The source of the US govt's money comes from taxes. Does it have any other source?

Mitch

Business -and- individual taxes

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch No, most is not an exaggeration. Go and look at some statistics.

Mitch

dividing by population ignores that

but in your favor, it's not really by population but by wage-earners which is probably 1/2 of the population?

Faheem Mitha

15:58

@Mitch Business taxes? At the end of the day, they also get their money from the people of the United States.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha As I mentioned I don't have the numbers.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Dividing by population is just to get an idea of how things look. Obviously, that includes infants, chidlren, and retirees.

@Mitch In my favor?

Mitch

@FaheemMitha You'll have to clarify your thinking here then. Taxes on businesses probably (I don't know for sure) accounts for just as much or more income to the govt as income tax.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch They're not hard to find. Household wealth and things like that are probably collected by the US Department of Labor. And if not, I suspect that someone else is collecting them.

@Mitch I'm not sure what you mean. If US consumers (a subset of the population) don't have any money, then would the businesses have any money?

My point is that ultimately the money is coming from the people. It's their debt.

@M.A.R. Sure they can change it. By voting for someone else.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha You're trying to make the case that the burden of government debt falls directly to US citizens and that is quite a lot and I'm saying it is not as much as you think (and also doesn't come directly out of their pockets). Since it is only wage earners that owe income taxes, it is a lot fewer people to divide by and therefore -more- money out of individual wage earners pockets. ie in the favor of your argument.

Faheem Mitha

16:04

@Mitch Ok. Well, anyway, it was just an impressionistic attempt to convey what the national debt actually means. Since the common approach is just to ignore it. But it's quite real, and quantifiable.

And about US people not having any money. That's only based on my personal experience. But I lived in the US for a while. I didn't get out much, but I didn't live in a hole, either. And my experience was quite consistent. Buttressed by statistics about income inequality.

The US is pretty expensive. And Americans don't tend to save that much. Nor do they typically spend their money wisely.

Mitch

Same reasoning goes for every nation. So really, if you follow this argument, you really need to do a comparison between governments, rather than just saying 'government debt is a large percentage of individual income'. You have to make a quantitative case for how much and then compare against other countries.

Faheem Mitha

OTOH, Indians are big savers, though not necessarily vary financially literate. They also favor gold, or so I hear.

@Mitch Sure, other countries have debt too. I'm not saying they don't. But they don't have terrifyingly large military budgets.

Mitch

Yes, of course, the US has the biggest military budget by far. something something more than the next top few combined something vaguer something something

Matt E. Эллен

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Just for the record, my summary of Greenwald's article and video was rather poor. For example, he also discusses in detail how the Senate consistently makes pro-war policy choices, often against the wishes of the Executive. But you really should just watch the video.

@Mitch More than the rest of the world combined, I believe. But again, numbers should not be that hard to find. Also, this has been a consistent feature for many years.

@MattE.Эллен Raw numbers would be more relevant.

Oh, and also I think that the budget may not mean that much. Because I think that if they run out of money, they just ask for some more. Which is then not part of the budget. Special appropriation or something.

Mitch

16:11

@FaheemMitha I was thinking the same thing. But percentage is relevant too.

Faheem Mitha

One would have to look at total expenditure. Which might not be that easy to find unless someone has already made a list. But on the Net often people have already done the work for you.

@Mitch Mildly.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha That's what Matt just did (for %)

Matt E. Эллен

You're talking about the total debt of a nation, and say most of that is down to military spend. so the comparison to GDP is relevant, because that is how much money they make to offset the debt

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch That was for military budgets. As I just said, that may or may not accurately reflect total expenditures.

I.e. they may spend more than their budgets.

I have the impression that there are numerous "one-offs".

From Wikipedia:

Mitch

@FaheemMitha but that's what Matt was replying to, our statements about military spending, not the whole show.

Sure, it'd be interesting to know all the countries' budgets, income and outgo, and one-offs and such. and do the comparisons.

Faheem Mitha

16:16

@Mitch I think we are not communicating here. So, what I am saying is that the military budget isn't what the military is actually spending. I.e. it is more.

Though the actual numbers might not be so easy to get.

Mitch

2020 is going to be a crazy outlier year for all countries, just like 2008-2009.

Faheem Mitha

For example, from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

Mitch

@FaheemMitha I agree. I feel like you're thinking of a lot more than you're saying.

Faheem Mitha

> The recent military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were largely funded through supplementary spending bills outside the federal budget, which are not included in the military budget figures listed below.[14] However, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were categorized as "overseas contingency operations" in the starting of the fiscal year 2010, and the budget is included in the federal budget.[citation needed]

Mitch

covid stuff is going to be a lot extra for many nations that aren't in their budgets.

Faheem Mitha

16:19

That paragraph is somewhat confusingly worded, but I think the upshot is that if you see a number against "military budget", that isn't the actual number that was spent.

Mitch

OK

Faheem Mitha

Also, I hear that the military is quite good at "losing" money.

Mitch

do you think that is the case anywhere else?

Faheem Mitha

If you ask them for accounts, they can't account for a few billion dollars here and there.

@Mitch You mean in other countries? Yes, probably.

Captain Bohemian

I think a microwave stove is easier to use than an electric stove because you don't need a pot to heat food by a microwave stove while a pot is needed for an electric stove.

Faheem Mitha

16:20

There are similar dynamics in other places.

Captain Bohemian

carrying a pot to travel is not convenient.

Faheem Mitha

Anyway, Greenwald's articles and videos are generally good, but I thought that one was quite outstanding. I encourage everyone to watch it. Especially if you happen to be living in the United States and paying taxes there.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha The thing most Americans don't understand about Trump's "tax cut" is that it is a tax cut only for the wealthy and is going to be a tax hike for low-income people starting next year and continuing to increase the hike for them until the "cut" expires at the end of its tenure.

What can I say? People are stupid.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Agreed. Though Greenwald didn't talk about that. Or if he did, I missed it.

For the record, I paid US state (mostly NC) and federal taxes for many years, even though I had little money. Including payments to Social Security that I was never going to be able to collect on.

If you don't have a lot of money, US taxes are quite high. And a lot of Americans don't know this, but if you are not a US resident, you don't get to claim the standard deduction till you've been in the US for a while. Unless your country has a tax treaty with the US.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Do you have 40 quarters of SS payments? If so, you qualify.

Faheem Mitha

16:29

So of course that makes your taxes even higher.

@Robusto Dunno. Anyway, I've not living there any longer.

40 quarters would be 10 years? Not sure.

Robusto

How long did you live here?

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto 15 years, give or take.

Robusto

You might qualify. I'm not sure about the laws for non-citizens, but it is probably worth a look.

Faheem Mitha

But I think I only paid SS in the later part of tha period. Possibly for as little as 5 years. I don't remember.

@Robusto Ok.

Robusto

What was your profession?

Faheem Mitha

16:31

@Robusto Mostly I was a student. Then I worked at a university for a while.

Not a lot of money involved, either way.

Robusto

No.

Faheem Mitha

18:15

@Mitch

> Wealth is distributed in a highly unequal fashion, with the wealthiest 1 percent of families in the United States holding about 40 percent of all wealth and the bottom 90 percent of families holding less than one-quarter of all wealth.2 (See Figure 1.) Notably, 25 percent of families have less than $10,000 in wealth.

From equitablegrowth.org/…

In case anyone is wondering, USD 10,000 isn't much money in the United States. It'sc currently less than the money you would make working minimum income for a year. You could maybe live on it for a year, but it wouldn't be fun.

You couldn't afford to pay health care from it, either. And if you got sick, you'd be royally screwed. But you might still have to pay a (small) amount of federal and maybe also state income tax, depending on what state you lived in.

For example, NC likes to tax its residents. And I think they tax the standard deduction part, too.

Top Google hit for "wealth distribution in the united states" where I am.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha So how does it compare to other countries, could frame things in a more understandable way I think

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Wealth is unequal everywhere. But I was talking about the United States and its military expenditure. Or rather, Greenwald was.

@M.A.R. Though maybe I misunderstood you. What is "it"?

Nick Alexeev

19:12

Folks, do I need commas in this sentence?

> The state pattern(,) described in the GoF book(,) is a object-oriented implementation of a finite state machine.

Faheem Mitha

19:41

Biden took Arizona, and Wisconsin was just called for him too.

@NickAlexeev I wouldn't. The comma is to insert natural pauses in a sentence, and sometimes to clarify/disambiguate meaning by cordoning off clauses from each other. But in this case the sentence is short, and the structure unambiguous, so those pauses are unnecessary and possibly annoying to the reader.

Probably clause is not the right term here.

22 needed to win.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha How unequal is wealth in the US compared to elsewhere? I believe this comparison would suffice to debunk an irrationally utopian view of life in the US, or at the very least it seems like one of the only metrics based on which judgements of this sort can be made.

@NickAlexeev In case it's not a typo and a quote, it's "an object-oriented implementation", BTW

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. I think wealth is unequal alsewhere, but it depends on where you choose to compare it to. There are many "countries" in the world.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha Yeah, the US does not have a favorable Gini index in comparison to European countries.

M.A.R.

Well, as with healthcare, I think comparing it to the most equal countries in the world (which would almost definitely be in western Europe), the countries similar to the US and maybe a few of the countries just below the US would be reasonable

Oh, that's it, genie index!

Mitch

Iran is pretty near the US in Gini index

Faheem Mitha

19:56

@M.A.R. The most equal countries in the world are the Scandinavian group, and Japan, by most measures. Possibly NZ would also be in the running.

M.A.R.

@Mitch well, it doesn't provide the full picture of course. But it would be one of the most important factors I would put my bet on

Faheem Mitha

I think Denmark tends to be near the top most of the time. No 1 or 2.

Fingers crossed for Pennsylvania.

M.A.R.

South Africa

O.O

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. ??

I think India's Gini coefficient is lower than the US, but that's almost certainly wrong.

It's probably based on Indian govt data, which is very unreliable.

M.A.R.

indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/SI.POV.GINI/rankings

Mitch

19:58

@M.A.R. it can be somewhat misleading because Gini index or inequality measures are within a country so it could be (I don't know) that the US has a mostly similarr individual worth profile to Europe, but could have many more super-billionaries.

M.A.R.

@Mitch well that would depend on the statistician to remove the bald-headed tech-giant-leading statistical anomalies

Mitch

List of countries by income equality

This is a list of countries or dependencies by income inequality metrics, including Gini coefficients. The Gini coefficient is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality (where everyone has the same income) and 1 corresponds with perfect inequality (where one person has all the income—and everyone else has no income). Income distribution can vary greatly from wealth distribution in a country (see List of countries by distribution of wealth). Income from black market economic activity is not included and is the subject of current economic research. == UN, World Bank... ==

@M.A.R. well, no, you don't arbitrarily throw those guys out of the stats. what you do is show the distribution, not just the single number.

M.A.R.

@Mitch Oh WTH are the ranks in that mundi site then?

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. I doubt those numbers are coming from reliable data.

And I don't believe that Belarus and Ukraine are better than Scandanavia.

Probably based on made-up Govt data.

Mitch

slovenia, hungary denmark sweden czechia are the top in equality. so balkans and scandinavians

@M.A.R. what mundi site?

Faheem Mitha

20:02

And India is almost certainly near the top of that list, not 2/3rds of the way down.

Slovenia, on the other hand, is a very developed country, so that's possible.

Mitch

oh, your link

danged if I know

it's not totally off from wikipedia

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Any sensible measure of statistical dispersion trims outliers.

M.A.R.

Hmm, no data for Saudi Arabia?

Faheem Mitha

Otherwise such measures are not very useful.

M.A.R.

That would have been interesting to see

Faheem Mitha

20:03

@M.A.R. Probably no public data available?

Isn't it like one big dictatorship?

Mitch

slovenia is historically more western leaning than the other balkans, but I don't know if that surely translates into other things. It was communist (like the other balkans) which might philosophically account for better equality, but I have no idea if that's reflected in the real world

M.A.R.

Yah, but I mean it would be another example of super-rich people living in the same country as some horror stories I hear like a family of six living in a caravan

Mitch

@FaheemMitha That's crazy

Faheem Mitha

Actually, India's number might not be that implausible, if there are just not that many rich people.

@Mitch Why?

Mitch

You have to have a very good reason to remove outliers, like bad reporting or transcription errors.

M.A.R.

20:05

(Not anti-Saudi propaganda, I'm sure of the source of the horror stories I hear)

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Well, outliers are considered to be uncharacteristic by definition. But no idea what the Gini cofficient actually does.

Mitch

Your analysis and inferences should account for those outliers, not remove them.

Faheem Mitha

For example, there is the trimmed mean.

Mitch

Sure there are techniques to deal with outliers that should be removed. But those should be only used with great caution.

So you're doing statistics on world economics. Oh look, US is twice as bad on this measure. Throw it out.

M.A.R.

Tempting, tempting

Faheem Mitha

20:09

@Mitch Would that it were so easy.

Mitch

@M.A.R. haha! I set myself up for that.

Faheem Mitha

That sort of approach only makes sense with large data samples, of course.

There's usually an underlying distributional assumption.

And one is usually trying to estimate parameters, at least in traditional/frequentist statistics.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Outliers can also force us to reexamine our premises. For example, if we hypothesize that there are no human beings who are three meters tall, and then we find one who is 2.9 meters tall, even though we prove the hypothesis we might suppose that there could possibly be humans who are 3 meters tall.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Sure. It depends on what one is trying to do.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha This is fun and all to talk about in chat, but if you ever find yourself with a set of data to analyze and you just throw out outliers, I'd be very concerned as either the consumer or as the one asking for your analysis.

M.A.R.

20:11

Sounds like Biden is 3M votes ahead and gaining even more edge?

Which site do you use to monitor election results?

Robusto

Let's hope so.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Actually, statisticians throw out outliers all the time.

Robusto

But I think you're right.

Faheem Mitha

It's often not such a big deal.

@M.A.R. The Guardian. Which is itself following the AP.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha In the situation we were discussing, actual statistics on countries, no, it is rare to throw out a country statistic, as long as the underlying data is not cooked or otherwise tampered with.

Faheem Mitha

20:13

He needs 22 electoral votes to win.

M.A.R.

They train me constantly to do t-tests and throw the outliers out, but there's a known mu in this occasion

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch No, I was talking about wealth distributions. So the outliers that would be thrown out would be individuals.

Mitch

Why would you throw them out if they are outliers?

Faheem Mitha

Whether it would make sense or not, I don't know.

Robusto

The thing about statistics that confounds people is that wealth is concentrated in the outliers.

Faheem Mitha

20:14

@Mitch Because they are uncharacteristic of the distribution.

I'm talking about extreme values here, obviously.

Mitch

ugh. you don't -know the distribution yet.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch You make a modelling assumption and then try to fit the parameters.

Mitch

??

Faheem Mitha

Though that's not actually what the Gini does. But I was speaking generally.

Mitch

Take it over to Cross Validated

Robusto

20:16

If the tallest man in the world walks into a room full of 100 people, the average height of the people in the room will not change markedly. On the other hand, if Jeff Bezos (worth ~$200,000,000,000) walks into the same room, the average wealth increases by a couple billion dollars.

Mitch

When you're talking about comparing one country to another, you're just doing descriptives. THere's no modeling or inferencing going on. it's just "A is bigger than B." Done.

If you're modeling health spending vs avg death age, you see that the US is -way- off line, yeah you say "Here is the model without the US, (and here is a speculation as to why it's so weird)

Robusto

@Mitch Let me go on the record here by saying that I don't want to live in Zimbabwe. No matter what.

Mitch

@Robusto Maybe you're judging too soon?

Robusto

We can renew my vows yearly.

Faheem Mitha

Actually, this is a moot point, because the Gini coefficient obviously doesn't use individual values, anyway. That would be impossible, because nobody knows them.

Mitch

20:20

There are measures (statistics) that are -robust- to outliers (eg use the median instead of the mean for @Robusto's example).

Faheem Mitha

They must be using some sorts of range estimates, because that's all the information that is available.

Cerberus

23:19

@Mitch "individual worth profile"

What did you mean by that, exactly?

The EU has a Gini of 0.30, whereas the USA has 0.47.

The lowest American state, Utah, has 0.40. New York is more like 0.55.

The world's top 20 lowest countries are all in Europe (a few outside the EU, like Ukraine and Belarus).

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