Free Republic

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The other day also we had economic news not good about the widening gap between the rich and the poor. We had the news that the smarter are getting wealthier and the stupider are getting poorer -- I mean, it wasn't good -- and that the wealth gap was wider, much wider today between the top 1% and everybody else than five years ago when Obama took office. We have more details on this, and one of the fundamental aspects of the story we had was the median income. We pointed out the median income in the...

Everybody knows what the word "average" means and that it is the most widely used simple statistic. But it can be highly misleading. That occurred to me in two recent news reports. One article a week ago detailed how households would be affected if we returned to the tax rates in effect from 1994 to 2001, including an elaborate tabulation of the average annual increase for taxpayers by state. The second article dealt with average life expectancies relating to the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. In the first article, the tax increases detailed ranged from an average of about...

There is an interesting study that has been done back to the 1930’s. It has to do with the median price of a house divided by the price of gold. Whenever that price reaches 100 we reach a bottom. ( SEE GRAPH TOP LEFT. DOUBLE CLICK ON THE PICTURE IF YOU NEED IT LARGER) Since Phoenix has been one of the hardest hit places in terms of housing prices, you’ll find this a very interesting exercise.

BERKELEY — University officials say people living and sleeping in the wide street median outside the UC Berkeley tree-sit are creating a messy, dangerous and noisy situation with their tents, litter and drumming circles. But the people in the tents — who act as ground support for a handful of people still living in a university oak grove — say their small encampment is there to protect the grove, help those still perched in the trees and keep a watchful eye on university police, with whom they've sparred in the past. "It's dangerous. We are getting complaints from people who...

Contrary to what archeologists and historians had previously believed about the existence of Medians at Ecbatana Hill, latest archeological studies at this ancient hill have so far revealed no single evidence from the Median Empire (728 BC-550 BC)... Masoud Azarnoush told CHN that stratigraphy works and dowsing operations in five places on the hill have only revealed evidence of the Parthian civilization (248 BC–224 AD)... "The present theory is proposed based on findings in the area in which soundings were made and it is possible to find evidence of the Medes somewhere else on the hill," said team director Azarnoush......

"Kerkenes is supposed to be a part of Phrygian culture. The ancient city of Pteria implied a date later than that of the Phrygian period in Kerkenes; however, the establishment of the ancient city couldn't be wholly realized and it served as a settlement area only for a period of 50 years. The founder of the city chose this particular location due to its geographical convenience for defense and travel routes. The administrative, religious and military structures in the city indicate that it was originally established for long-term settlement. But archaeological surveys show that the city was burned, destroyed and...

Going up. For all the predictions that the elevator had reached the top, that housing prices had peaked and would only go sideways, the Inland Empire reached another milestone and posted an all-time high in March. The median price of a single-family home in the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area was $403,000 in March, according to numbers released Tuesday by the California Association of Realtors. It's the first time the median price has passed the $400,000 mark, and it comes just 21 months after prices topped $300,000 for the first time in June 2004. "A lot of people who have been...