6 ms·

This seems like the same article, but without the need to subscribe to read the whole article: https://jacobin.com/2024/02/tax-ivy-league-endowments-public-univ

This seems like the same article, but without the need to subscribe to read the whole article: https://jacobin.com/2024/02/tax-ivy-league-endowments-public-university-massachusetts https://jacobin.com/2024/02/tax-ivy-league-endowments-public... > Based on the size of these “rainy-day funds” alone, the two universities, with a combined student body of 37,000, have enough wealth to rival Ghana, with a population of 35 million. This is not correct at all, as the author is comparing a stock to a flow. The citation for this is a link to the World Bank's listing of GDP by nation. Ghana had a GDP in 2022 of $73 billion, but that is not Ghana's collective wealth. Not a great start to an opinion piece on a huge tax policy proposal: the proposed projected figure of $2.5 billion would be the equivalent to 5% of Massachusetts's current annual tax revenues.

NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
Virtually all non-specialist reporting that touches on economics or finance is littered with grievous errors, in my experience, the more so if it highly partisan.
- SebFender 3y ago
  With time you'll notice in most complex situations and subjects - many articles are of the wall in poor details and erroneous information - but especially on background. I regularly read these with one eye closed...
- gbacon 3y ago
  > Founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever, David is also an Oscar-nominated writer and worked as Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign speechwriter.
  - joenot443 3y ago
    In this case it was a staff writer, by the looks of it: > Helen is a Colorado-based reporter focused on health care. She has been published in KFF Health News, Scientific American, the New York Times, and more. Doesn't make it any better. It's wild you can have an MS and mix up wealth and GDP.
- psunavy03 3y ago
  Michael Crichton used to call this the "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect." That non-specialist reporting is usually grievously inaccurate about everything. But we tend to only notice when it's inaccurate about a subject we are trained/educated in, and then assume that it's accurate everywhere else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Gell-Mann_amn...
  - rz2k 3y ago
    An effect that was wonderfully illustrated in his book State of Fear, where he intended to undermine climate science.
- foooorsyth 3y ago
  It’s all subjects — not just economics and finance. Journalists don’t know what they’re talking about, but they’ll confidently act as if they do.
  - ghufran_syed 3y ago
    reminds me of working on a derivative sales desk for an investment bank - they wanted me to write something everyday about what was happening in the market to send to clients, but then my boss would criticize me for "being too much of a scientist" i.e. requiring facts and logic...
  - yogorenapan 3y ago
    Hence why they are so worried about AI. I’ve stopped reading the news about technical matters. The mistakes are too numerous and their analyses are no better than the layman’s.
- metacritic12 3y ago
  Grievous is absolutely the right word -- stocks, flows, and dimensions are cherry picked to have maximum verbal impact without looking at whether the underlying measure even makes sense. One of my favorites is something like "the richest 10 people have more net worth than the bottom 40% of Americans SUMMED". Well the bottom 40% of Americans are in debt, so if you have $1, the above statement is true for you too! The sleight-of-hand happens with the word "net worth" which usually means financial or in-bank net worth. For most of the population, their actual worth is stored in their human capital. If you account for that, I assure you the top 10 or even 100 richest Americans do not have greater worth than 150 million bottom Americans (to proxy this, look at income). A easier way to visualize this is to consider the statement "Joe Biden owns more cars (3) than the bottom 30% of the US SUMMED (0)". Cars is such a weird dimension of inequality.
  - pksebben 3y ago
    > the bottom 40% of Americans are in debt That this somehow reads to you as totally normal and not at all anything to worry about tells me a lot about your perspective. edit (addendum): > "Joe Biden owns more cars (3) than the bottom 30% of the US SUMMED (0)" Fairly certain the bottom 30% owns more than 0 cars in total.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      This would logically be read as "bottom 30% of Americans, ranked by car ownership [rather than net worth or income]". I suspect that there are in fact more than 30% of Americans who own zero cars. 18% of Americans are 14 years old or younger [and presumably almost none of them own a car], so if 15% of those 15 years old or older don't own a car, the total is over 30%.
      - pksebben 3y ago
        Fair point. Even solving for age, I would assume this holds as cities with metros mean roughly 80% of people don't even need a car. It's still an absurd comparison, as 0% of people don't need money.
  - 3y ago

NovemberWhiskey 3y ago

Virtually all non-specialist reporting that touches on economics or finance is littered with grievous errors, in my experience, the more so if it highly partisan.

SebFender 3y ago
With time you'll notice in most complex situations and subjects - many articles are of the wall in poor details and erroneous information - but especially on background. I regularly read these with one eye closed...
gbacon 3y ago
> Founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever, David is also an Oscar-nominated writer and worked as Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign speechwriter.
- joenot443 3y ago
  In this case it was a staff writer, by the looks of it: > Helen is a Colorado-based reporter focused on health care. She has been published in KFF Health News, Scientific American, the New York Times, and more. Doesn't make it any better. It's wild you can have an MS and mix up wealth and GDP.
psunavy03 3y ago
Michael Crichton used to call this the "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect." That non-specialist reporting is usually grievously inaccurate about everything. But we tend to only notice when it's inaccurate about a subject we are trained/educated in, and then assume that it's accurate everywhere else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Gell-Mann_amn...
- rz2k 3y ago
  An effect that was wonderfully illustrated in his book State of Fear, where he intended to undermine climate science.
foooorsyth 3y ago
It’s all subjects — not just economics and finance. Journalists don’t know what they’re talking about, but they’ll confidently act as if they do.
- ghufran_syed 3y ago
  reminds me of working on a derivative sales desk for an investment bank - they wanted me to write something everyday about what was happening in the market to send to clients, but then my boss would criticize me for "being too much of a scientist" i.e. requiring facts and logic...
- yogorenapan 3y ago
  Hence why they are so worried about AI. I’ve stopped reading the news about technical matters. The mistakes are too numerous and their analyses are no better than the layman’s.
metacritic12 3y ago
Grievous is absolutely the right word -- stocks, flows, and dimensions are cherry picked to have maximum verbal impact without looking at whether the underlying measure even makes sense. One of my favorites is something like "the richest 10 people have more net worth than the bottom 40% of Americans SUMMED". Well the bottom 40% of Americans are in debt, so if you have $1, the above statement is true for you too! The sleight-of-hand happens with the word "net worth" which usually means financial or in-bank net worth. For most of the population, their actual worth is stored in their human capital. If you account for that, I assure you the top 10 or even 100 richest Americans do not have greater worth than 150 million bottom Americans (to proxy this, look at income). A easier way to visualize this is to consider the statement "Joe Biden owns more cars (3) than the bottom 30% of the US SUMMED (0)". Cars is such a weird dimension of inequality.
- pksebben 3y ago
  > the bottom 40% of Americans are in debt That this somehow reads to you as totally normal and not at all anything to worry about tells me a lot about your perspective. edit (addendum): > "Joe Biden owns more cars (3) than the bottom 30% of the US SUMMED (0)" Fairly certain the bottom 30% owns more than 0 cars in total.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    This would logically be read as "bottom 30% of Americans, ranked by car ownership [rather than net worth or income]". I suspect that there are in fact more than 30% of Americans who own zero cars. 18% of Americans are 14 years old or younger [and presumably almost none of them own a car], so if 15% of those 15 years old or older don't own a car, the total is over 30%.
    - pksebben 3y ago
      Fair point. Even solving for age, I would assume this holds as cities with metros mean roughly 80% of people don't even need a car. It's still an absurd comparison, as 0% of people don't need money.
- 3y ago