Drum lays waste to the Times: The New York Times is our nation's most famous newspaper.
It's also the most foppish and, perhaps for that reason, often the least competent. Silly piddle is everywhere in its big fat self-involved Sunday editions. And yesterday morning, on the Times' hard-copy front page, a heart-rending headline said this:
Bankruptcy Booms Among Older Americans as Safety Net FraysOn this morning's page A3 (hard-copy only), this shocking report is listed as one of "the three most read, shared and discussed posts from across nytimes.com."
The report "drew surprisingly little sympathy from commenters," the account on page A3 says.
There's only one problem with that front-page report. According to Kevin Drum, it's utterly, haplessly wrong. This is nothing new for the New York Times, as Drum perhaps seems to suggest.
You can read Drum's post yourself. We're guessing that Drum is right in what he says and that the glorious Times has managed to bungle again.
If Drum is right, that front-page report was grossly misleading at best, but mainly just hopelessly wrong. On that same front page, Shear and Schmidt offered their silly, second-grade level account of federal election law.
This past Sunday, one day earlier, the Times was crawling with utterly silly lifestyle/self-involvement reports. When a nation's alleged elites become this dumb and this self-involved, will that nation's Donald J. Trumps likely be far behind?
The report drew surprisingly little sympathy from commenters and such reports have never drawn much sympathy from Kevin Drum either. I would wonder whether reports about living conditions for the elderly might not arouse feelings of insecurity in those approaching retirement, which are combated defensively by rejecting such fears.
ReplyDeleteIn his report, Drum notes: "This is the story. Credit card debt, the dotcom bubble, the housing bubble, the 2005 bankruptcy law, the rising cost of long-term nursing care—these are all stories. If you want to dig deeper and tell them, fine. But can we drop this endless scaremongering about a massive increase in elderly bankruptcies obtained solely by cherry picking the starting year and providing no surrounding context?"
The increase is compared to 1991 and there does seem to be a big jump in 2001, after which there is not much further increase, and as Drum notes, the rise affected all income groups not just the elderly. However, it still DID affect the elderly and the change is true. The increase in bankruptcies did happen.
In order for this to be a matter of cherry-picking the starting year, there would have to have been more bankruptcies before 1991, so that 1991 produces an artificial increase due to a momentary dip in the rate. Drum presents no such data. His chart for all ages shows an even lower rate before 1991. So, no, the data wasn't cherrypicked and there were no shenanigans involved in picking 1991 as the starting year. The bankruptcy rate did increase, as stated.
Drum is always a bit testy about articles examining life for elderly. He never has any sympathy himself for their economic plight. I believe he is threatened by the whole subject, perhaps because of his health situation. I think that might similarly explain why commenters in the NY Times reflected a similar lack of sympathy for the elderly.
There has been a tendency to portray the elderly as leeches living off the earnings of younger workers, competing with them for subsistence. The current 20-30 year olds feel very sorry for themselves and there has been a lot of talk about the stagnation of wages generally (which today's elderly have been part of during their own working years). There has been no talk about the percentage of elderly who are still working because they cannot afford to retire. So, it isn't surprising there is little sympathy for older people.
And Somerby continues to have no interest in lifestyle articles, which he believes do not belong in a newspaper. I guess, having lived his life and having no spouse or children or household to speak of, he doesn't care about other people's concerns.
I'll bet Malala would care. I'll bet MLK would care. I find it hard to believe anyone doesn't care about grandma and grandpa and whether they are eating catfood for dinner. But Somerby has lost his famous empathy, so he doesn't give a damn and feels justified because Kevin Drum doesn't much care either -- not enough to figure out why more elderly are declaring bankruptcy.
Like today's youth, he no doubt envies those who are doing fine and thinks those elderly who rely only on social security are whiners and should shut up and enjoy their Medicare. Because only workers matter in Bernie's socialist paradise.
For this to be cherry-picking, all that’s required is that the data be filtered to support a conclusion different from the one supported by the full data set. And that’s exactly what’s happened here. In 1991, before the dotcom/housing bubble, the bankruptcy rate for the elderly ran about .9%. In 2001, after the bubbles burst, the rate rose to 2.9%, where it pretty much stayed for 15 years.
DeleteThis is exactly the same strategy that climate deniers use when they choose the super-El NIno base year of 1998, when temperatures were unusually high, to claim that there’s been no global warming since.
The headline in the Times claims “Bankruptcy Booms Among Older Americans.” Booms. Present tense. But there is no “boom.” A true headline would read “Bankruptcy Rate Steady Among Older Americans for 15 Years.”
Perhaps you’d have picked this up if you weren’t nattering on about Somerby’s empathy and what he thinks and feels. Not to mention speculating about his family life.
The data set for all ages shows that the rate was even lower before 1991. Assuming it is the same for the elderly (Drum doesn't provide data for before 1991 for elderly), cherry-picking should have meant using an even lower rate, not the one at the elbow directly before the increase. The year 2001 was not specifically selected to magnify the effect claimed.
DeleteThe headline is correct because the rate increase that began in 2001 is still present. Present tense is thus accurate. The steadiness would also be accurate but wouldn't describe the increase, which did occur.
Somerby himself comments on the lack of empathy in the NY Times comments. His own lack of empathy is obvious and Drum doesn't care. We all get old and need to rely on others who we hope will care about us.
Lack of empathy has been described as a conservative trait. I believe Somerby's lack of empathy is yet more evidence that he is not the liberal he claims to be. Have you tasted catfood? You may get the chance.
Yes, the data shows that the bankruptcy rate was lower before 1991. So what?
DeleteThe Times article says that “a rapidly growing share of older Americans” face bankruptcy. Growing: present progressive tense as in happening now. This is not true. The percentage of elderly bankrupts has been flat for 15 years. Flat, as in not growing at all, let alone rapidly.
The year 2001 was not specifically selected to magnify the effect. The year 1991 was selected to do that. If 2001 had been selected, the percentage would have been 2.9%. If you compared that to 2016’s percentage of 2.8%, you’d have to say that the percentage of elderly bankrupts decreased slightly.
Have you caught on yet?
The graph is not of rate increases but of rates. Actually, rate is a a bit of a misnomer here. What’s shown is a percentage of the population in question. The “steadiness” doesn’t describe the increase that occurred between 1991 and 2001, but why would that be news? The reporters could accurately say, “The large increase in bankruptcies after the bursting of the 1990s economic bubbles has led to a persistent bankruptcy rate over 15 years.” But that is apparently true for all age cohorts, not just the elderly.
Somerby’s lack of empathy is immaterial. The article is misleading independent of how he feels about others.
No, we don’t all get old. Some of us die young. And no, not all of us need to rely on others. Some of us remain independent throughout life. But the elderly and dependent do not affect the article.
Lack of empathy has been described as a conservative trait. By credulous people like you. So what? Conservatives may all be cold-hearted, and that still wouldn’t affect the article.
I know you believe that Somerby lacks empathy, but the foolish things you believe isn’t evidence of anything but your foolishness.
And whether I end up eating cat food won’t affect the article. We may both end up eating cat food, but whether we do or not, I’ll still be able to read a graph.
And you won’t.
"The percentage of elderly bankrupts has been flat for 15 years. Flat, as in not growing at all, let alone rapidly."
DeleteIf you look at the graph, the percentage is not flat but bounces around. These measurements are only flat if you draw a trend line through them.
I think saying 2001 instead of 1991 was a typo. 2001 was the dotcom collapse. I think you started talking about that. There is no evidence that caused anything -- it is only one of several causes Drum suggested. I would put my money on the changes to the bankruptcy law myself.
Your statement about elderly remaining independent reveals a lot about you. It is a fantasy but if it comforts you, go ahead and believe it. Your body will fail you in the same ways it fails everyone eventually. Jonathan Haidt described lack of empathy as a conservative trait -- he is a political psychologist and himself a conservative.
Kevin Drum doesn't understand a lot about statistics, although he likes to play with graphs. You'll see this if you read his comments, where he frequently gets beat up by people with actual expertise.
What are you talking about? Look at Drum’s first graph — no need for a trend line. The data is flat from 2001 to 2016.
DeleteThere’s no evidence that the collapse of the tech and housing markets affected bankruptcy rates? OK, if you say so. But it doesn’t matter. In 1991, the bankruptcy rate for seniors was .9%; in 2001, 2.9%. And it’s remained at that level through 2016. That’s the point.
Your adamantine ignorance is without excuse, but you can be forgiven for misinterpreting what I said about “some of us.” I didn’t mean that I was destined to remain independent. “Some of us” means some in my age cohort. I merely wanted to point out your nasty habit of making sweeping and incorrect generalizations. I have no fantasy that I am immune to the depredations of old age. I’ve worked in nursing homes, so I know.
As for Haidt, he calls himself a centrist. And I have no idea why I should pay any more attention to his sweeping generalizations -- assuming that you’ve even reported them accurately-- than to yours. I’ll bet Kevin Drum understands more about statistics than you do. At least he can read a graph.
The rate fluctuates by .4 of a point, which is a lot given that it is 2.9 at its highest. That isn't flat. It is a change of 13%.
DeleteIf you think that's flat, we have nothing to talk about.
I was in a postdoc program with Haidt.
Change of 13%. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
DeleteI went to the original paper and checked the numbers. There are three relevant data points on the graph: 2001 (2.9%), 2007 (2.5%), and 2016 (2.8%). Actually, the paper reports 2.8% for “2013-2016”, but let’s stick with the one end point. Yes, the change from 2001 to 2007 is 13.8%, but it’s down. From 2007 to 2016 the change is 10.6% up. So what do we do?
Well, I’m sure a postdoc like yourself would suggest a linear regression to get a line of best fit, and fortunately, the intertubes provides tools for those who seek. And guess what? The line of best fit has a slope of -.0035. Not only is this line damn near flat — zero would be horizontal — but the trend is slightly negative, that is down, not zoomingly up.
Now you are repeating what I said earlier and calling it your own idea.
DeleteI'm not a postdoc now and neither is Haidt. Postdocs go on to become professors, as we both did. But my point is that Drum is a journalist and Somerby has very little social science background, but you are willing to defend them both to the death, because...why? Drum is often wrong about statistics -- don't depend on me for that, read the comments of his own blog. When he makes a blunder, which he does about once every few months given the frequency with which he posts graphs, his readers tell him right away. In detailed technical terms.
He isn't feeling well and he didn't think this one through. Cherry picking isn't the right word and the graph he presented doesn't support his conclusion about it. And Somerby blindly followed him, with you tagging along behind.
You can pick any date in the past earlier than 1991 and it will support the same conclusion -- there was an increase in bankruptcies after 1991 and there has been little subsequent increase beyond that. You can call that flat -- I wouldn't because I see some fluctuation. But that's nitpicking. The point is that no one has cherrypicked the "before" comparison date to make it look like a large increase -- the same increase is evident no matter what prior dates you put in the graph.
I don't see why you are bothering to argue about this. It is obvious from the graph. You are now just making yourself look silly.
Now you are repeating what I said earlier and calling it your own idea.
DeleteThis isn’t my idea; this is a standard way to treat data.
I'm not a postdoc now and neither is Haidt. Postdocs go on to become professors, as we both did.
Sorry, I thought you meant you were a postdoc in a program run by Haidt. Sure postdocs go on to become professors, and anybody can play a professor on the internet.
you are willing to defend them both [Somerby and Drum] to the death
My, how dramatic! Somerby and Drum are right about the Times article. I don’t care how often Drum is wrong on other matters.
Cherry picking isn't the right word and the graph he presented doesn't support his conclusion about it.
You don’t get to redefine words to fit your thesis. The graph in question supports Drum’s conclusion, namely, that the bankruptcy percentage of seniors hasn’t budged in years.
there was an increase in bankruptcies after 1991 and there has been little subsequent increase beyond that.
And that’s the point. It is misleading to present a news story making it seem like the increase is a current crisis among seniors. The increase is ancient history and affected all age cohorts.
The point is that no one has cherrypicked the "before" comparison date to make it look like a large increase
But cherry picking is exactly what was done to make the increase look like a current issue.
Here’s the headline:
“Bankruptcy Booms Among Older Americans as Safety Net Frays”
But bankruptcy isn’t “booming”; the rate hasn’t changed in 15 years.
Here’s the first sentence of the article:
“For a rapidly growing share of older Americans, traditional ideas about life in retirement are being upended by a dismal reality: bankruptcy.”
But the share hasn’t budged in 15 years. That’s not “rapidly growing.”
I don’t see why you are bothering to argue about this. Is your need to bash Somerby and Drum so great that you’re willing to argue that you see “some fluctuation” in data when the best-fit line has a slope of -.0035? Do you know what the slope of a line means here?
You are now just making yourself look silly.
Well, you’ve got a point: when you argue with a fool, pretty soon no one will be able to tell the difference.
Tell me, “Professor”, is the bankruptcy rate now booming among seniors or not?
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ReplyDelete"When a nation's alleged elites become this dumb and this self-involved"
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