[mburbank]

"These statistics seem simple and straightforward. But they are not."

That's in reference to sttistics he's bothered to site, so he can discredit them. They are indeed flawed in several ways. He goes to great lengths to show how they are arrived at and does a good job of showing where the problems lie. His main argument? The stats the census uses don't take into account living conditions.

So far, so good. But then he follows up with


"Researchers have discovered that almost one million people classified as poor own homes worth more than $150,000, while upwards of 200,000 people classified as poor own homes worth more than $300,000."

Reasearchers have discovered? What researchers? How did they compile their data? What does it account for and what does it not? These sttistics seem simple and straightforward, as do all statistics if you don't say where they're from or how they were arrived at.

His analysis is worth thinking about. His conclusion is not only unsubstantiated in any way, he proves in the first half of the article that he knows better. He complains about misleading statistics and then follows with statistics which aren't even sourced, let alone explained.

Very poor work at best, deliberate obfuscation at worst.