Illuminati-R-Us

A graph?

Lance wrote:A graph?

We have a winner!

Really, that's all you wanted?

Lance wrote:Really, that's all you wanted?

Well, for bonus points, you could indicate what data is represented in the graph.

Hint - the data points are monthly, and the horizontal axis ranges from January of 1959 until March of 2013.

monthly averaged 1st world fertility rate 1959-2013

Is it the percentage chance that Bruce Forsyth is not one of the undead who feasts upon the blood of the living and that he may actually die some day?

Frequency of someone's erections?

The percentage of the world's population which holds 1% of the wealth?

MM_Dandy wrote:The percentage of the world's population which holds 1% of the wealth?

Now that's more like it.

At first, I thought it was this and wanted to get all puffy, but the curves don't quite match, especially not the timeframes.

So it is something that was steady through the 1960s peaked at the end of the decade then steadily declined until the last decade. US defence spending in real terms? This comes with the caveat that I can't get my head round the timescale on the x axis.

I'd estimate it to be some natural process - the temperature curves in the BA article I linked to look rather similar. Howwever, I imagine to see a roghly 2-year, instead of a yearly rhythmicity.

So maybe it's temperatures on Mars?

I'm still sticking with erections...

MM_Dandy wrote:The percentage of the world's population which holds 1% of the wealth?

Assuming you mean the top percentile which owns 1% of the world's wealth, it should be less than 1%.

It is a financial time series, and the source was the US Department of Commerce. I don't expect that they track the phenomenon Llance is describing (although I haven't checked, maybe they do).

No, I'm sure it's erections. Look:

The period from 0 to 200 is the onset of puberty to the age of 21. Then from there to 600 describes age 21 to 40. Then the discovery of Viagra happens and we have the new peak.

Lance wrote:No, I'm sure it's erections. Look:

The period from 0 to 200 is the onset of puberty to the age of 21. Then from there to 600 describes age 21 to 40. Then the discovery of Viagra happens and we have the new peak.

It is not, but perhaps when the true identity of this graph is revealed, you will be able to find some relation between the two variables.

Мастер wrote:

MM_Dandy wrote:The percentage of the world's population which holds 1% of the wealth?

Assuming you mean the top percentile which owns 1% of the world's wealth, it should be less than 1%.

It is a financial time series, and the source was the US Department of Commerce. I don't expect that they track the phenomenon Llance is describing (although I haven't checked, maybe they do).

I have no recollection whatsoever of what I was trying to ask with this question. I think I was trying to be ambiguous or clever or something, but in the end, it looks like I was just spouting nonsense.

Savings rate in the United States.

Which more-or-less translates to what MM Dandy suggested I guess. Fewer people are able to save more money.

tubeswell wrote:Which more-or-less translates to what MM Dandy suggested I guess.

Well, let's find out.

I had to go to a different source, which shows the percentage of wealth held by the top 1% (presumably what MM Dandy meant). This source shows it every 3 years since 1989, and rather sporadically before that. It is apparently possible to get the same information more regularly from the same author prior to 1989, in book form, but that would involve paying money. Here are the results, savings rate plotted as a function of the percentage of wealth held by the top 1%.



The author of the source for wealth concentration also notes that inequality in the US increased notably during the financial crisis, a time when the savings rate also increased.

tubeswell wrote:Fewer people are able to save more money.

It was a bit hard to find international comparisons outside the OECD Countries, which are all pretty rich, but I did find something from the World Bank, which clearly uses a different definition of savings rate (gross domestic savings) than the US Department of Commerce. I'm not sure how much I trust this comparison, but if we take it at face value, countries where people can afford to save more money (as a percentage of income) than in the US each year from 2008 to 2010 include China, Gabon, Azerbaijan, Chad, South Sudan, Zambia, Mongolia, India, Angola, Russia, Vietnam, Peru, Belarus, Sudan, Botswana, Laos, Mexico, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, Romania, Bulgaria, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Syria, Ghana, Turkey, Namibia, Uganda, Cameroon, and Cambodia. (This list is not exhaustive - there are quite a few other countries which come ahead of the US.)

I'm not convinced that people in the US are too poor to save their money.

Well I guess the top 1% have got better things to do with their money than stick it in a savings bank

OK, so we're switching over from Americans saving less because they're getting poorer, to Americans saving less because they're getting richer? In any event, I'm not sure how any clear pattern, positive or negative, would emerge from that graph. The top 1% most likely do not put the majority of their money in a passbook savings account, but the savings rate is not restricted to this particular form of savings. And as per the graph, the share of wealth held by the top 1% is about 35%, give or take a few percent, depending on the year. That leaves 65%, give or take a few percent, in the hands of the bottom 99%. So any explanation of savings rate based on the behaviour of the top 1% is going to have trouble explaining much more than 1/3 of aggregate savings. Except something is wrong with that one - for savings purposes, we should probably be looking at income, not wealth (since the savings rate is a percentage of income, not wealth).

The same author who kindly provided the share of wealth percentages for the top 1%, kindly provided the same information for the top share of income. Somewhat annoyingly, they are not for the same set of years as the wealth numbers, so I won't produce another graph, although maybe I will later. It varies quite a lot, much more than the wealth numbers, but is always (at least for the years shown) less than 25%. So a theory of savings based on the top 1% of income-receivers would miss more than 75% of the income, a lot more in some years. Also, the top 1% in income are not necessarily the same as the top 1% in wealth, but if we ignore that, people who earn less than 25% of the income but have more than 35% of the wealth sound like people who save more, not less, to me.

Did I mention Americans? Why equate Americans with the top 1%?

Besides that, just because the top 1% don't put the money in a savings bank, doesn't mean they wouldn't have got it invested somehow (I suppose) (If I had wads of spare cash to throw about, I'd possibly do that with some of it as as well).

As to switching about, I've only been guessing about relationships, because I'm trying to keep an open mind, even though I admit I can be fickle at times.

tubeswell wrote:Did I mention Americans? Why equate Americans with the top 1%?

It's the US savings rate. If they're not American, then they'll show up neither in the savings, nor in the income which it is divided by.

tubeswell wrote:Besides that, just because the top 1% don't put the money in a savings bank, doesn't mean they wouldn't have got it invested somehow

Yes, that was my point. The savings rate cannot be low because rich people (or poor people) invest in something other than savings accounts, because those other investments will show up in the savings rate as well. It will be low if they spend their money instead.