birdog1960

there is almost a $2 mil difference between median and mean in the top 10%. some of this can be explained by investment success but i'll bet more of it is due to the enormous wealth of the top decile within the top decile. a few thousand billionaires skew the mean markedly up.

did you not look at the absolute white vs nonwhite median and mean numbers? the mean and median net worth numbers for nonwhites are abysmal. so they lost less in median and gained a bit in mean...there still abysmal. yes, the poor lost less and in some cases gained some but when you start with almost nothing, that's not very meaningful. the numbers in that table show the extreme top heaviness of wealth distribution in the us - even among the top 10%. to see this even more clearly, the top 10% should be further subdivided. much of that groups wealth lies in the hands of the top 1 or 2%. there's plenty of other data available that illustrates this....this is just another example.

it's amazing how different people can look at the same data and come to very different conclusions. table 4 shouts out to me. the difference between mean and median, especially among the top 10% deserves comment. it doesn't require a statistics degree to guess the explanation. the mean and median net worth chasm between white and nonwhite americans also deserves mention although i note that the cnn article doesn't.

salesman at best buy tried to talk me into direct tv. they had espn's x games on and it looked pretty good. he said you could get pay per view and one other proprietary direct tv station in 3d. doesn't seem like much material to compensate for my general past dissatisfaction with dtv but i'm thinking about it. it would be a better deal than buying marginal movies just to experience 3d and get some use out of my display. are there more 3d channels than that available? any word on major cable companies joining in? mine doesn't even currently deliver 1080p so i'm thinking it will be a long time coming.

i've been underwhelmed by the availabilty of titles and in some cases, the quality of the discs that are available. this weekend i bought 3 discs on sale at best buy for $20 each: harry potter deathly hallows parts 1 and 2, and hubble 3d. what amazes me is the difference in 3d quality among them. hubble is awesome, hp part 2 ok and hp 1 is worse in 3d than 2d. i assumed that buying a blockbuster in 3d would guarantee a good product... wrong. so far the best disc i've seen is still "hugo". any thoughts on what's good and what to avoid in 3d blu ray? i'd like to avoid wasting another 20 bucks. based on hubble, i'm guessing anything imax is a good bet.

i think russia is coming around to the realization that assad is no longer viable. both russia and iran have offered asylum. russia will probably back of if they can be assured of provisions for a new gov't that is friendly to them unlike most of the remaining middle east. tough to pull off but that's what needs to happen and likely will. both iran and russia are included in annan's newly proposed talks.

i tend to like before urban cowboy country more but there's plenty of good new stuff in among the fluff. can't see youtube at work and missed an earlier johnny cash link (and still can't see it) so it'd probably be appropriate not to comment on what others did or didn't post . sorry.

all these posts and no cash or carters? here's a twofer: "long legged guitar pickin man". makes me laugh every time.

might not know the name but you've heard his songs covered by the dixie chicks, brad paisley, keb mo, faith hill, zach wylde, patty loveless and more...this is likely his best but "crooked road" is up there too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtSLMGc4VSA&feature=related

old dolly parton song, new(er) artisits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxL6z08AL7M&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QEDb3xzdec

this is one of the reasons i hate directtv. different deals for different people at different times. seems so arbitrary and annoying. i've been looking into ota on some websites such as antennaweb and there's another that gives higher estimates of stations. for me, i can get about 8 digital stations i'm seriously thinking about doing this with a tivo dvr and buying shows like madmen, game of thrones and justified from apple. filling in with netflix. should have enought to watch with all that! only problem is espn. guess i could go out to a bar for games i wanted to see there.

but there's a risk.... getting a fake. there's more than a couple folks walking around with a "rolex" with a great looking watch that has a low end swiss movement that works just fine til you get it appraised by a jeweler. i'd be very skeptical of on line watches. the chinese even knock off $500 watches so it's an iffy investment. i'll stick with a nice looking but well made reasonably priced watch. next on my list is a hamilton ventura - the one worn in "men in black". one of the first electronic watches and very cool looking to my eye. almost iconic. not cheap but no were near a rolex.

exactly...and why we should be worried about bilderberg.

yet you don't see the irony in 7 figure net worth individuals stealing 30 bucks worth of balls?

sounds pretty unlikely...but if you say so. there's a pretty exclusive club round here. some well known athletes and national businessmen are members. no bilderberg types but mostly members who'll get hit with the estate tax when they pass on to the next tee. they have titleist pro v1's as range balls. a papal bull was posted threatening expulsion for anyone caught stealing them from the range because so many had gone missing. not heard about anyone pi$$ing in the plush zoysia fairways though.

with indiscreet, crass statements like this, you've efectively refuted your own contention of insider status in elite society.

agreed. this stuff doesn't help advance the questions or the answers to the questions.

best answer so far...but not very convincing. these guys need a country club like a dysentery patient needs an enema. for the most part, they are genuflected in front of by everyone around them. most (with the notable exceptions of mitch daniels, john edwards, a young blair and charlie rose) have little to prove. they've already won. now they have to protect the winnings and for some strange psychopathological reason, attempt to become even more powerful. money? lots of entertainment and sports stars have plenty but they frequently can't stop papparazi from snapping embarrasing pictures at intimate events like weddings and funerals. but these guys throw a big party discussing serious global issues every year and nobody but a few rag tag amateur journalists and photographers are there to report and document. try again.

guitars and ukes. consumer electronics. got more speakers, amps/preamps, receivers, cabling than i'll ever use. less of a collection than an attempt to reach a/v nirvana. i like watches, too. just can't bring myself to spend big bucks on them, which i think is a good thing. have some decent mid to low mid range pieces- luminox, hamilton etc. wearing my favorite fossil today. hard to beat for the price.

i think it may well be more malevolent than your post suggests (couldn't watch the video at work).. i think it's kabuki theater. there are defined antagonists and protagonists (fox vs msnbc for example) in varying roles depending on your political orientation. and who is it that propagates the liberal msm belief? why, it's the msm of course. just the protaganist or antagonist playing it's assigned role in the play. so what's the end game? it's to shape public opinion in a manner that's conducive to the interests of people like those that attend bilderberg (notice, i didn't limit it to those folks or definitely name all of them). we know how efective advertising of consumer items can be. we can assume this is highly effective as well. there's plenty of evidence for that here on PPP. i find it all very scary and disappointing. hell, even good ole charlie rose attended bilderberg!

didn't inerpret it as an attack. but i do note that i keep attempting to limit the disussion to the press and you keep expanding it to world domination,which is a mucn, much harder sell. i'm struggling to find out why most people would find it beyond the realm of possibility that our media is largely controlled. that a free press, in terms of the large inlueential media outlets might be an illusion. the radical right has been railing for decades about the MSM. what if they've got the right book but the wrong storyline? what if the msm is biased but mostly in a way that benefits the corporate elite. well, if that were even partially true, it would significantly erode many peoples faith in a truly representative democracy. it would be machiavellian political philosophy trumping locke and hobbes who we've considered the architects of the american and european sysytems for centuries. i'm not saying the lack of coverage of this event for 58 years proves all this. just that it's one possibility when few others appear to exist. and doc, the media uncovered a sex scandal for the secret service. ya think they might uncover one juicy tidbit in 58 years that the public might be interested in? if they looked under a microscope at 58 years of vacuum salesmen conventions,they'd likely find a mildly sensational, somewhat interesting story or two. the salesmen themselves wouldn't have to talk for the story to get out.

so the implication is that it would be easy for only 6 news corporations to collaborate? ok, accepting that premise does not require that the elites at bilderberg run the world, only the media or at least have great influence over it. i think that's a workable hypothesis but still don't find it funny. as to your contention that were living in a golden age, even acceptance of that rather shaky contention doesn't justify acceptance of a media system cotrolled by a few elites. bread and circuses worked thousands of years ago. mybe it's idealistic but i'd hoped we'd progressed.

clearly...but laughter seems an inappropriate response. remember the strauss-kahn story. i think we can agree that was big news and sold many papers. bilderberg's been going on over 50 years, 120 attendees a year,,,many with big ego's and presumably big libidos. but not a single sex scandal story. not a single loose lipped maid or bellhop. not a single former with attendee whose star is fading, trying to get even through the media. not a single report of a knock down drag out among a couple of type A titans. this implies a remarkable code of silence among the elite, a disinterested or inept media, a collaboration within media to not report or all of the above. history shows that such a story or stories would sell papers and the newspaper industry could certainly use a jolt. just observations without answers but somehow i don't find the possible explanations that i'm able to construct all that funny. maybe you could enlighten me to the humorous possibilities.