Good grief, please go read Yves Smith on this over at Naked Capitalism. This is a scam. 444 of those mortgages are NOT underwater. There is a reason this was stopped in San Bernardino. link to nakedcapitalism.com
Juan, your data sets are throwing me a little. Typically, median would be lower than mean (average) if you had extreme outliers at the upper end of the spectrum (take a sampling of 99 people with $1 + 1 person with $1000 and calculate the mean ($20) and median ($1) to see my point). The above data is mixing results from two different surveys (US Census Bureau mean net worth compared to IASP - Brandeis University median for total wealth for a sampling of 1,700 families studied over that period of time). The median net worth for whites in 2009 is actually about $113,000 and $5,677 for blacks, according to Pew (Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics. Pew Research Center,
July 2011). While the comparisons are closer, I would assume the 2009 Pew median is higher than the 2013?? US Census Bureau data because of a significant loss in household value.
None of the above changes your analysis, but the data are quite dissonant.
Comparably, we refer to the American War for Independence as The Revolutionary War, as if there has been no other. The "American War" is also somewhat of a misnomer, given the reference to two continents. The French spent more than the Continental Congress on the war, although the colonies contributed about the same amount as the French. Not taught at all in my American history courses was the involvement of the Spanish and the Dutch. The war also spawned fighting around Mysore that almost ousted the British out of southern India.
It's not binary. Beeman goes to Iran and has conversations and conferences with students and other guests and writes about how much folks know and understand about our country and politics. Meeting your standards for behaviour and truth telling in this article is not his goal...obviously.
On the contrary, many Arabs, Persians and Indians go to universities in Europe and the United States. They watch our movies and televisions shows. They get Fox, CNN, John Stewart, David Letterman and Sean Hannity. Seen Al Jazeera much on MSM in the US?
They pay attention to our politics, in large part because our policies affect them - a central point of Bill Beeman's letter. Finally, most folks I meet and work with in the UAE and other countries I have visited in the MENA region distinguish between our culture and people and our government's policies; a quality you might choose to emulate.
It constantly amazes me how profoundly ignorant we (Americans) are about culture and life in most other countries, especially those in the Middle East, North Africa and southern Asia. I live in the UAE, ironically, which has a fractious relationship with Iran; but we have many Iranians living here. Teheran is considered a terrific place to visit; the skiing is very good, although the resorts are not quite as posh as the Alps and the Rockies.
I just saw an amazing Iranian film, A Separation, and had a chance to meet the director, Asghar Farhadi, at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. The movie is reflective of the amazing, thriving film industries in Iran and many other regional countries.
I live and work in Abu Dhabi and have many Egyptian colleagues. Many emigrated to earn a decent living. Two very good friends worked extremely hard (2 and 3 jobs) in order to get a university education to work abroad. They never earned enough money to afford their own apartments in Egypt...lived with family.
Here are some quotes: "the military in Egypt is very wise; they will protect the people; our military supports Egypt and Egyptians." Just anecdotes, but relevant to the article.
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Juan,
Good grief, please go read Yves Smith on this over at Naked Capitalism. This is a scam. 444 of those mortgages are NOT underwater. There is a reason this was stopped in San Bernardino.
link to nakedcapitalism.com
Juan, your data sets are throwing me a little. Typically, median would be lower than mean (average) if you had extreme outliers at the upper end of the spectrum (take a sampling of 99 people with $1 + 1 person with $1000 and calculate the mean ($20) and median ($1) to see my point). The above data is mixing results from two different surveys (US Census Bureau mean net worth compared to IASP - Brandeis University median for total wealth for a sampling of 1,700 families studied over that period of time). The median net worth for whites in 2009 is actually about $113,000 and $5,677 for blacks, according to Pew (Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics. Pew Research Center,
July 2011). While the comparisons are closer, I would assume the 2009 Pew median is higher than the 2013?? US Census Bureau data because of a significant loss in household value.
None of the above changes your analysis, but the data are quite dissonant.
Comparably, we refer to the American War for Independence as The Revolutionary War, as if there has been no other. The "American War" is also somewhat of a misnomer, given the reference to two continents. The French spent more than the Continental Congress on the war, although the colonies contributed about the same amount as the French. Not taught at all in my American history courses was the involvement of the Spanish and the Dutch. The war also spawned fighting around Mysore that almost ousted the British out of southern India.
It's not binary. Beeman goes to Iran and has conversations and conferences with students and other guests and writes about how much folks know and understand about our country and politics. Meeting your standards for behaviour and truth telling in this article is not his goal...obviously.
On the contrary, many Arabs, Persians and Indians go to universities in Europe and the United States. They watch our movies and televisions shows. They get Fox, CNN, John Stewart, David Letterman and Sean Hannity. Seen Al Jazeera much on MSM in the US?
They pay attention to our politics, in large part because our policies affect them - a central point of Bill Beeman's letter. Finally, most folks I meet and work with in the UAE and other countries I have visited in the MENA region distinguish between our culture and people and our government's policies; a quality you might choose to emulate.
It constantly amazes me how profoundly ignorant we (Americans) are about culture and life in most other countries, especially those in the Middle East, North Africa and southern Asia. I live in the UAE, ironically, which has a fractious relationship with Iran; but we have many Iranians living here. Teheran is considered a terrific place to visit; the skiing is very good, although the resorts are not quite as posh as the Alps and the Rockies.
I just saw an amazing Iranian film, A Separation, and had a chance to meet the director, Asghar Farhadi, at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. The movie is reflective of the amazing, thriving film industries in Iran and many other regional countries.
Please publish more from Iran.
I live and work in Abu Dhabi and have many Egyptian colleagues. Many emigrated to earn a decent living. Two very good friends worked extremely hard (2 and 3 jobs) in order to get a university education to work abroad. They never earned enough money to afford their own apartments in Egypt...lived with family.
Here are some quotes: "the military in Egypt is very wise; they will protect the people; our military supports Egypt and Egyptians." Just anecdotes, but relevant to the article.