Whaaaat????

[miriam_e]

Just listened to a bit of a piece on Radio National that talked up the Australian economy boasting that the number of Australian millionaires is "increasing", "swelling", "growing"... but listening carefully I noticed that it was mentioned briefly that the number is actually dropping.

I have become careful of Radio National lately because their reports seem to be getting slanted.
All the commercial stations dish up crap and the last independent broadcaster is starting to go wrong. Thank heavens for the internet.

Comments

[metalhero.livejournal.com]

Thank Heavens indeed. Because we all know the internet can NEVER be misleading ;)

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

heheheheh :)
The internet has diversity of opinion and that is its great saving grace.

I've been reading a lot lately about how crowds can be smarter than the individuals in it... but ONLY if there is diversity of opinion. The minute uniformity emerges things tend to go terribly wrong and the crowd becomes not only stupid, but in some respects insane. Our media are almost totally uniform, and now with our national broadcaster starting to be restricted too... well, thank heavens there is some variety on the net.

[sharpblonde.livejournal.com]

Ummm... They said the number is increasing, but you could tell that the number was actually decreasing by listening carefully? How fucking stupid can you get? A national radio station which can be caught in its own lies just by listening closely to it... *shakes head* And, the decrease in millionaires could actually be a good thing. I mean, if the decrease in millionaires doesn't mean a decrease in the country's wealth, just a more even distribution of capital that can't be anything except good in my opinion.

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

a more even distribution of capital that can't be anything except good in my opinion.

Aren't you neglecting the possibility that more money is being concentrated in fewer people? Fewer "haves" that have more?

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

That, in fact, is what they seemed to be reporting. :(
More money in fewer hands. [sigh]

[sharpblonde.livejournal.com]

i wasn't ignoring it. i simply hypothesised one possible reason... the one i would HOPE is true. i used the word the word if BECAUSE i realised it wasn't the only possibility. i

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

:)
They were talking it up, trying to make it sound like a good thing that Australia's "Millionaire's Club" is "increasing". They weren't actually lying. They just gave an enthusiastic positive spin on it. I think they were actually saying that the reducing number of millionaires are even richer than before... which is certainly not a healthy direction to be heading. Money can be viewed as a limited resource. If more of it ends up in fewer hands then everybody else just got poorer. :(

The program's audio is online. I'm downloading it now to listen to it again, out of interest. I only heard it by accident last night because I turned on the radio early to hear something else.