Re: Food Checkout Week

In article <foqj8i$4i7$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, sethb@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Seth) 
wrote:

> In article <fodl51$kk1$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Keith F. Lynch <kfl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> ><rkshullat@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >> They're just taking total food expenditures for the year, at-home
> >> and away, and dividing by total disposable personal income.  It's
> >> a meaningless number.
> >
> >Why is that meaningless?
> 
> Suppose Bill Gates's income rose to the point where it doubled the
> total income, while everyone else's remained the same.  That ratio
> would change by a factor of 2, while the effect on everybody else
> would be nil.

That doesn't make it meaningless, it just means that it doesn't give all 
the information one might like.

Suppose the reason the average temperature of the earth went up was that 
the tops of several high, dry and uninhabited mountains had just gotten 
much warmer. That wouldn't have the implications that global warming 
generally does--but that doesn't mean that "average temperature of the 
surface of the earth" is a meaningless number.

-- 
 http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
 Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
 Published by Baen, in bookstores now