Thomas Sowell on Scoring Points in the Media

Sowell has a good article on how the media crunches numbers in their own way to get the numbers they want in readership. The American public has been deceived by media and politicians doomsaying that the economy is the worst its ever been. Is this true? Think about these stats Sowell gives from the book, Myths of Rich and Poor: As of 1970, for example, only about a third of American homes had both central heating and air conditioning, while more than four-fifths had both in the 1990s. Moreover, the homes themselves were more than one-third larger. Just over one-fourth of American households had a dishwasher in 1970 but more than half did by the 1990s. Only 34 percent of households had color television in 1970 but 98 percent did in the 1990s. How could this be, with lower real wages? Were we just going deeper and deeper into debt? Actually the net worth of Americans more than doubled during those same years. Was there some kind of economic Houdini who could perform such magic? No. Actually a lot of the point-scoring rhetoric involves misleading statistics. Food for thought...and time to get informed.