October 3, 2008
Is Ignorant Dogmatism Possible? I'm Afraid So.
October 3, 2008
The Lamps Are Going Out
October 3, 2008
What If the Median Voter Were a Failing Student?
October 3, 2008
Credit Default Swaps
October 3, 2008
How Government Used Fannie and Freddie
October 2, 2008
The International Angle
October 2, 2008
Cochrane and Rogoff on the PBS News Hour
October 2, 2008
Henry Waxman's Hearings
October 2, 2008
Economists' Bipartisan Bailout Opposition
I thought that the chart looked strangely linear, so I entered the numbers in Excel and plotted an XY chart rather than a bar chart.
It is highly non-linear. A power regression fits the data the best. (y=1E-108*x^32.57, R^2=.9809)
Interestingly enough, you can get an almost perfect fit if you only plot the years 1820, 1913, 1950, and 2005. (R^2=.9985, y=5E-114*x^34.25)
1980 is a huge outlier. That's the damage socialism caused, especially Maoism and Indian style socialism.
I thought the middle class was shrinking ;)
MISPRINT
"...54 percent in 2005 to a projected 79 percent in 2005."
But a fascinating snippet - thanks.
Dear AK, please could you give some indication of the oprational definition of Middle Class used in this book?
Do a exponential regression on the data for 1820, 1913, and 1950. Extrapolate to 2025.
Had socialism never occured, 96.7% of the world's population would be middle class in 2025 vs. the 79% now projected (I get 76.5%).
66% of the pop would be middle class in 2005, instead of the 54% we now have.
Socialism/ Maoism did that much damage. And it isn't like 1950 was a good year or anything. It was only 5 years after WWII, after all. Imagine where the world would be if, say, WWI had never happened and the positive trends of the 19th century had continued.
A couple of typos: "23 percent in 1850" should be changed to the much-less-shocking "1950"; and as pointed out above, "79 percent in 2005" should be "2025".