Misleading Economics and Reporting

Here’s an example of poor reporting: misleading statements based on mistaken assumptions arising from economic ignorance, that tends to stoke groundless class envy:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/16/news/economy/top-1/index.html

Correcting and re-wording statements in the video completely changes the tone:

“The world’s millionaires control 47% of the world’s wealth” –> People can only control wealth they created, so we can say: “The world’s millionaires created more than half the world’s wealth, a fraction of which they control themselves, the rest enjoyed by consumers – or captured by governments as taxes, which ostensibly benefits the people.”

“Millionaires are growing their money at 6.3%, while lower income earners saw their wealth grow 4.3%” –> All income brackets are getting wealthier, which is healthy. Yet this analysis follows income brackets, not individual people or families, who move up and down between brackets, so it doesn’t imply that poor individuals or families are advancing slower than rich individuals or families. Indeed, mathematical variance would cause the brackets to diverge even if individuals were shifting brackets and moving closer together. More detail here:
http://blog.philbirnbaum.com/2014/09/income-inequality-and-fed-report.html

“It is the up-and-comers creating most of this wealth” –> “Economic distinctions are dynamic, not static, which is a healthy sign that anyone with the right combination of ideas, work and luck can become wealthy. And successful people who don’t continue to work work hard lose their wealth and fall back into lower income brackets”.