patrick.net

Yeah, I actually really get a kick out of riding transit. It is much more fun to me than driving, except for when someone really smelly gets too close.

I find that when I ride with Ava (my six month old) people talk to me all the time. Otherwise, people mostly don't strike up a conversation at all. Something about having a kid makes you accessable to strangers. Having blue hair works too, but I have not done that in a long time.

1:05 AM already? I am a pumpkin.. should have been an hour ago.

How about the Transplants "gangsters and thugs"?

Best radio station I ever heard, equal to live 105 in the early 90's was recently in El Segundo (the second, named as such because it was the second Standard Oil refinery), indie103, they have a 'net cast.

How about single malt scotch? Is that good for you too?

I only drink Scotch that's old enough to have sex with, legally, in Non-Southern States. No offense to those Southerners that have an age of consent less than 18.

So X…
You getting married soon?

I need a fast car and an alibi.

So X…
You getting married soon?

I need a fast car and an alibi.

Guess I went to bed too early last night. Missed all the fun.

Jimbo, it is hard to find any universally agreed upon data supporting the 1970s peak family real income for the reasons you cited. The books I pointed to by Howe & Strauss reference a lot of research verifying the claim. I have no doubt one could find just as much research claiming the opposite. I once saw something in B-Week with a little graph showing the Boomers were the LOWEST family income earners since the Civil War (I kid you not), even including the Depression. People can do amazing things with statistics.

I tend to be neoclassical so I pretty much only care about GDP per capita, adjusted for inflation (chained dollar method) and then applied to period census data. MSNBC had some articles recently which referred again to the 1970s peak. I'll see if I can find those, perhaps they have decent data references.

And to be fair in showing what would be an alternate explanation of the data I claim: it could also be simply that the 1970s saw the beginning of massive wealth consolidation, accelerating in mid 80s, which has had the effect of driving the median family real income down significantly while increasing the mean due to increases in the massively wealthy.

Randy H,

Just by my vocation I tend to miss a lot of the late night fun. I've gotten used to it. I have seen Harry Dent echo your sentiment on several occasions. I believe there is a chart in "The Roaring 2000's" that exhibit exactly that. In ways Dent is as much a demographer as he is economist.

I'm a Randian. No really, I am.

Jimbo Says:

I find that when I ride with Ava (my six month old) people talk to me all the time.

We have a 6 month old too! Fun as hell, eh?

I've got a big fat iPod 40GB. I have a ton of music, and I like it to be portable. My iTunes currently reads 36.26GB (23days, 3hours of music), so I'll need a bigger one soon.

I use iTunes on Windows, but I ripped my giant collection of CDs all with MP3 format, not the default AAC. I used to buy music on iTunes instead of CDs, and then stripped the DRM with jHymn and converted their lossy AAC to MP3, and because I have a right to fair use regardless of what Apple & RIAA's lawyers claim.

I quit buying any iTunes music after they released 6.0, which broke jHymn. I will only buy CDs until the Hymn team cracks DRM again.

I used to do a good amount of internet radio DJing, as if anyone cares. But I do love my iPod. I can take my library anywhere I go.

I’m a Randian. No really, I am.

I think Alan Greenspan was a Randian too. :)

mi,

I listen to at least 70% of my music, I assure you. I listen to something different every day of the year. The remainder is primarily classical, which I store uncompressed and thus it takes up a disproportionate amount of storage space.

I have 30 genres, so I can't "shuffle" without serious paring, otherwise I'm likely to get something off "The Land of Rape and Honey" right after listening to Handel, capped off with Weather Vane.

I have slight (but progressing) hearing damage, so I don't miss what MP3 cuts from the spectrum. I am skeptical that any more than 1% of the adult public over age 30 can hear the difference either, unless maybe using $400 headphones on all optical equipment. In your car you ain't gonna be able to tell.

Looks like inventory has resumed its healthy climb.

http://bubbletracking.blogspot.com/2006/08/tracking-san-josesanta-clara-county.html

On 8/10 I thought it slowed down.

When will we see 10K inventory? :)

mi,

Although I'm not sure I buy your theory, I agree with regards to real instruments. My catalogue of Classical, Opera, Jazz, Blues, and Neo Jazz, and Jazz Fusion is all uncompressed. I don't buy into the "all digital sucks" crowd though. I think vinyl sounds like scratchy ass crap, and only serves straight rock and some punk well.

A good portion of my library is classic industrial (Einstürzende Neubauten), classic industrial dance (Front 242) and postindustrial fusion (Luxt, Kidney Thieves). If I cue up some old Front Line Assembly remix I doubt you're going to hear any missing samples or spectrum, because you won't know which are missing by design and which are missing by happenstance.

mi,

So if MP3 is too lossy, which format do you recommend?

anything uncompressed that equals the original 44.1k cd.

CD only has 2 channels though. I am surprised that SACD and DVD-Audio are not more popular. They support many more channels at much higher sampling rate.

One may not be able to discern the sampling rate immediately. But the 5.1 surround should be immediately noticeable.

Peter P, the music has to be mixed in 5.1 first which is less than .1% of the music out there. all the great music was recorded in mono in the 50’s and 60’s anyways.

True. But new recordings can always be made. :)

The husband just bought a squeezebox for ripping our gargantuan CD collection. Seriously, two people with a history of running clubs/DJing/music obsession soon find the CD to wall-space ratio too much to bear.

As its his 'baby' to rip them, I'm not sure what format he's using - 'lossless' is as far as I got this morning asking him. As most of our stuff is techno/electronica/jungle, you don't really miss the finer points...

To be honest, despite trying hard not to damage out hearing over the years, we both have slight mid-range damage , so MP3/wav files are fine for us.
Just as long as the base makes my clothes vibrate, I'm happy. Women respond to base ;-)

I'm for non-compression of classical though - especially Glenn Gould and his mad humming and squeaky piano stool over Bach.

I need to start digitizing music. I usually lose a CD in about two months. :(

But the 0's and 1's will make my music semi-permanent. :)

I do prefer a standalone, non-portable system with okay speakers though. I hate headsets.

I’m for non-compression of classical though - especially Glenn Gould and his mad humming and squeaky piano stool over Bach.

Absolutely. Lossless compression may be acceptable though.

I do not like heavy bass. I just like slow, depressing music.

I'm on the laptop at the moment, so have no access to them, but we both know/use Soundforge and Acid, so we can basically pick and chose our compression CODEC.

I'm letting the husband sort it out - 20-odd 24x18 boxes of CDs piled up in the living room just depresses me...

New thread: Lies, Damned Lies, and the C.A.R.

"slow depressing music"

Portishead?

RE: “slow, depressing music”

I also like loud, angry, thunderous classical music.

“slow depressing music”

Portishead?

I saw them in the mid 90s in Chicago. Gibbons is very reclusive. I can think of a lot more depressing musik than Trip Hop though:

Diary of Dreams
Switchblade Symphony
Theatre of Tragedy
Die Form
Blutengel
Painfetish

...oh, the list goes on.

I opted for Motorhead over The Greatful Dead.

“slow depressing music”

Will Oldham will do it, and you get hints of incest as a bonus.

Isn't that also like 90% of country music? I don't listen to mainstream country music so I'm not quite sure. But what I do listen to (I think they like to define it as roots or bluegrass) is awfully depressing.

Speaking of losslessness. I think I'll hold off my next digital camera purchase for the time when cameras came with 50 megapixals.

I think I’ll hold off my next digital camera purchase for the time when cameras came with 50 megapixals.

How big do you want your prints to be?

Unless you frequently blow them past 5x7 a 4 megapixel camera is sufficient. Squeezing too many pixels onto a small chip will increase noise level. It will not help losslessness.

If you do black and white you better stick with mediam format film for now anyway.

It was said earlier that the boomers had no competition from woman and minorities. Of course, about half of all boomers are women, and many boomers are minorities.

More significantly, affirmative action was implemented before the boomers entered the job market. This was good for female and minority boomers. However, white male boomers faced heavy reverse discrimination and increased job competition as our nation tried to correct the prior job discrimination against women and minorities. Women and minorities entered the job market in record numbers as the boomers were entering the job market. The boomers themselves were such a large group that job competition would have been strong anyway. But, add the affirmative action effect and it was very difficult. Unemployment rose to levels that were about double the level of recent years. The 1970s and early 1980s were a very difficult time to start ones career.

Hey Zephyr

You know the difference between a MEDIAN and a MEAN, right?

Historical Income Tables - Households

(Households as of March of the following year. Income in current
and 2004 CPI-U-RS adjusted dollars28/)

Without descriptive data of median, standard deviation and curve shape assumptions there is no way to tell where income peaked from that data. The numbers you rely upon could as easily be explained by changing of the shape of the income distribution curve over that period, which I doubt even you would deny has occurred over the years in question. In fact, I think you could explain the rising average from 1980-2000 merely by the number of newly minted Billionaires and accelerated absolute population growth alone.

You do realize that even though there were more boomers, the population of the US never decreased incrementally...

The deviations year on year are so low that I would be very surprised if instead of doing a simple baseline year, real dollar adjustment chained-dollars were used (as in the national income accounting standards by which GDP is calculated) instead the differences wouldn't be starkly negative growth somewhere before 1984 -- using the data you cite.

Of course that won't fit your conclusion so I'm sure you wouldn't consider it a valid alternate explanation of your preconceived notions that younger generations are simply ignorant and ungrateful.

Randy,

By dividing the income into five bands the distribution is fairly clear, and the distinction between median and mean becomes trivial, as it is then only relevant within each band. Clearly the income distribution has shifted dramatically over the last 50 years, with the top 40% gaining much more than the others.

I expect that the data was measured in a reasonably consistent manner over time and, as such, one can indeed tell when the peaks were observed. In addition, the collaborating other measures are supportive of the Census table data.

This data when run against other economic activity including household spending and housing prices fits the expected relativities and outcomes as well – indicating that it at least has strong descriptive power, and is likely accurate. Further, I have found it to be very useful in forecasting – especially when combined with other demographic data.

As for preconceived notions, I recognize that nobody can fully understand what is experienced by others – especially when it is experienced before our own birth. My point is not about whether people are ungrateful – it’s about understanding recent economic history.

Zephyr,

By dividing the income into five bands the distribution is fairly clear, and the distinction between median and mean becomes trivial, as it is then only relevant within each band. Clearly the income distribution has shifted dramatically over the last 50 years, with the top 40% gaining much more than the others.

Then you might wish to contact the Brookings Institute, the OECD, GAO, and NIA, among myriad others, and share with them your "Incredible Statistical Simplification Theory".

I guess they labor away at thousand page reports on this subject because they aren't as smart enough to understand quintiles.

(and by the way, since marginal taxes in the US are a step function, net real family income distributions also exhibit discontinuities around the marginal tax rate steps. unless there are magically only 4 such steps, and they each fall exactly upon a 20% population demarcation, they occur within a quintile.)

Randy,

Somehow my reference to the usefulness of banding makes me a simpleton who thinks that other statistical methods are bunk! And that my position is contrary to all reputable institutions. Wow! Can you stretch things. Of course, none of that is true. I recognize the value of more detailed statistical methods, as well as the limitations of both the simple and complex methods.

Your insinuations sound like the kind of mudslinging one finds in nasty political elections. I am not running for your office, so I concede the election to you.

I do not claim that banding is perfect or that it replaces the usefulness of other methods. While banding may be of little significance in your field of software/technology, it is quite valuable in my world, which is the maximization of business profits and investment returns. For this I rely on the practical evaluation of demographics, economics and financial markets. I must use what is readily available and actually works. The more sophisticated techniques are often not possible with the data available, and generally would yield little incremental value. While perfection is desirable, I cannot afford to let perfect be the enemy of good.

Besides, this forum is a chat blog – not an academic journal. So, statistical perfection is really an unrealistic standard, and I am disappointed by the nature of your attack.

Zephyr,

and I am disappointed by the nature of your attack.

I am quite happy to disappoint you. Had you bothered to read my initial comment on the subject of the income peak you would have noted that I openly stated that contradictory data existed and there was little agreement upon the methods.

What I take exception to is your condescending entry into the discussion with a smug finality that implies that anyone who doesn't see the beauty of your logic is obviously wrong. The ferocity of my rebuttal was meant to merely highlight that your position is, at the minimum, no more valid than others with equally compelling alternate conclusions.

And we were talking about population/census/macro economic trend data, no? Now you're making and ad hominem attack based upon the fact that "in my world, which is the maximization of business profits and investment returns".

a) This is irrelevant to the debate and an attempt to shift context to support your conclusions. No one was debating maximizing the NPV of your projects or increasing your DCF valuation. We were talking about income trends.

b) You play victim with my assertions then go on to make your own about what I may or may not need or utilize in my line of work.

c) You are wrong about my line of work.

d) You are wrong about my capabilities to "rely on the practical evaluation of demographics, economics and financial markets".

Quit honestly, I have defended you many times in the past as I believe that you add very sound, grounded business logic to the discussion. I simply ask you to do so with being condescending to alternate viewpoints.

Randy,

I made no comment on your capabilities, and my reference to your line of work comes straight from your own description of yourself on your blog.

Zephyr said:

While banding may be of little significance in your field of software/technology

then,

in my world, which is the maximization of business profits and investment returns. For this I rely on the practical evaluation of demographics, economics and financial markets. I must use what is readily available and actually works.

finally,

my reference to your line of work comes straight from your own description of yourself on your blog.

"Straight from my own blog":

I have a background as an entrepreneur, a management consultant, a venture analyst, a strategic technology leader, a telecommunications expert, and a software architect.

also referenced in my blog:

[Skills pertaining to venture analysis:]
* Financial valuation models, including various DCF models.
* Entrepreneurial valuation models, including CAPM CEQ & RADR, VC and First Chicago methods.
* M&A Interloper Analyses; Private company M&A; Int’l Financial Planning including hedging strategies.
* Highly skilled in GAAP statement analysis; strong command of GAAP accounting fundamentals.
* Macroeconomic risk modeling; detailed interest in various hedge fund strategies.

Draw your own conclusions about my "line of work", or read my blog yourself. I recommend not relying upon Zephyr's version.

(closed thread due to onslaught of recent Troll posts. apologies to Zephyr if he wished to respond.)