Skip to content
MACROECONOMIC · WOES

Latest in Society

Most cited on this site

The terms behind the numbers

Deposit beta
The share of a Fed rate move a bank actually passes on to its savers.
Roll decay
What a futures fund loses each month it sells a nearby contract and buys a dearer later one.
Owners’ equivalent rent
The rent a homeowner would pay for their own house — the heaviest single item in the CPI.
CPI-W
The index for urban wage earners and clerical workers: the basket that sets the Social Security raise.
Assessed value
The figure a county uses to tax a house, which is not what a buyer would pay for it.
Special assessment
A one-off charge on owners for work the reserve fund cannot absorb.

Sections

Society

Thresholds decide who counts. This section applies published statistical definitions to households: how an income band is drawn, what an index formula weights, when a series is rebased, and what a figure excludes by construction rather than by oversight. The aim is not to argue that a number is wrong but to state what it measures — which is usually narrower than the use it is put to.

Three published series carry most of that here: the two official earnings figures that disagree because they count different units, the food budget from the early 1960s that still anchors the poverty threshold, and the price index used to set the annual increase in retirement payments. In each case the definition is quoted, the agency that maintains it is named, and the use the figure is put to is stated apart from what it measures. The column’s own essays on incomes and class stay under its headings.

Passengers standing shoulder to shoulder in a crowded commuter car
Commuters on a full Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority train. — Jim Pickerell · Public domain

More in this section

Society

Response for @Epicurean Deal

I can safely say that, of the 400+ people I follow on Twitter, @EpicureanDeal is one of my five favorites (the others: @pkedrosky @robdelaney @zerohedge

Society

My 30 Favorite Non-Fiction Books

I’m sure I’ll omit some of my favorites here. The most glaring omission from my earlier lists was The Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

Society

20 Favorite Works of Fiction

Continuing the theme of the week, my twenty favorite pieces of fiction….. 1. More Die of Heartbreak. Saul Bellow 2. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde 3.

Society

Defending Jalen Rose (Sort of)

There’s been a bit of an uproar and an ensuing series of television interviews and editorials written over the last week about Jalen Rose’s “Uncle Toms” statement