From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Subject: Re: 1% has 90%? (was Re: My thoughts on Clinton's character)
Organization: Texas Instruments, Inc
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 06:38:13 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.164853.25125@ornl.gov> de5@ORNL.GOV (Dave Sill) writes:
>
>>Now let's examine this other statement, that the top 1% have 90% of
>>everything.
>
>Which we don't know to be true--you just made it up.

Well, no, I didn't.  Someone else had made the assertion in a prior
note.  My note was posted for the purpose of demonstrating that it was
an untrue assertion.

>
>>(unlikely in the extreme), what I heard on NPR (and others
>>have heard elsewhere) was wrong, or the statement about how the top 1%
>>have 90% of everthing is bullshit.
>
>I suspect the latter.  You pulled it out of thin air, as far as I can tell. 
>(See the first paragraph quoted in this article.)  We started with the
>statistic that the top 1% of the population has more wealth than the bottom
>90% of the population.  You somehow think that means the top 1% have 90% of
>everthing.  What makes you think so?

No, I didn't "pull it out of thin air" someone had asserted it in a
prior note.  I don't think that, and the whole purpose of my notes was
to debunk that prior assertion by someone else.

>
>>Ok, now assume that the statement that the top 1% have 90% of
>>everything.
>
>No, dammit.  Where do you get that?

Well, dammit, from a note prior to mine, where someone asserted it as
'fact'. 

>
>>That says that the bottom 90% must also have pretty close
>>to 90% of everything, because the two groups just 'crossed over' each
>>other.  That's almost 180% of everything, even assuming that the
>>middle 9% have nothing.
>
>Clearly absurd, but the problem is the assumption that the top 1% have 90% of
>everything.

Exactly.  That was, in fact, the point of the notes.  To debunk that
assertion by someone else.

>
>>Conclusion?  The statement about how the top 1% have 90% of everything
>>is bogus.  No 'bizarre' reasoning required at all; merely a little
>>thought, common reasoning, and basic arithmetic.
>
>Okay, I agree.  But it was *you* that made that assumption.  Here it is again
>for those to lazy to read it from the beginning of this article:

Well, no, it wasn't me.  It was in another note prior to the one I
wrote, which I guess you didn't see.  The point of my notes was to
debunk that assertion by someone else.

>
>In article <1992Jul22.051939.726@mksol.dseg.ti.com>, mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>
>>Sorry, but this doesn't seem to be the case.  Now, for the first time,
>>the top 1% have more than the bottom 90% (NPR earlier this evening).
>>Now, if we also buy that the top 1 % have 90% of everything, that says
>>that the bottom 90% must also have something close to 90% of
>>everything (since the two groups just crossed over each other).

Go back to the note I was responding to and follow the thread back, Dave.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
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