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Drew Carey on the Middle Class
Monday, February 4th, 2008Terrific.
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Is it true that Lou Dobbs has a degree in economics? Because a lot of what he says doesn’t seem to make sense at the most basic level. I’ve always wondered how economics can be taught as if it’s a science when economists seem to have such a wide range of ideas about how it works…
John Nye has one of the most compelling explanations for the paradox of happiness. At one point in time the wealthier people report higher levels of happiness than the poorer, but over time despite being wealthier, people in general report less happiness. We seem to yearn for the good ol’ days. This is different from being barraged by pessimistic news stories. Nye claims that the relative prices of the most luxurious or “positionary” goods have gotten more expensive. Yes general items are more accessible to everyone, but there’s only so much land space in Maui or Beverly Hills to go around. Some portion of the economy is subject to scarcity inherently more than the rest. These are positionary goods, goods whose value is held high specifically because they are scarce. When we are young we can think about how cheap buying a car will be by the time we are fifty, but we fail to realize how much more we may have to pay for the beach house of our dreams because so many other people can afford it too.
Sure, go visit some weekenders in La-La Land where u gotta make $100K just to survive - - try visiting the folks in ND where homes are selling for 10 cents on the dollar or here in S.W. Taxconsin where u can only make $10.45/hr. if you’re lucky.
One job down in OK wanted 3+ years of tech experience but only paid $14/hr., then there’s the one’s that insist u re-lo but how u gonna sell in this housing market and re-lo for a $18/hr. job? My retired parents on Medicare and all have better coverage than I do. I’m thinking of working for Haliburton just to replace my ‘94 Dodge, build a garage, and maybe install A.C.
[...] Great video from Reason, hosted by Drew Carey. The book, Myths of Rich and Poor, by Michael Cox and Richard Alm is mentioned in the video. Great book! It’s a quick and easy read, and often cited in economics books written for a general audience. [...]
This is good? I don’t know how they’re pulling that off - but if I had to guess I’d say it’s a combination of having no kids, dual incomes, debt, or a combination of the above.
I am solidly middle class (<100k) and I couldn’t begin to afford any of the things talked about here. I have a house big enough to house my family but we buy old cars. The most expensive car I’ve ever bought was less than 20k.
Are some things cheaper? Yeah, probably, especially comparatively. The problem for me isn’t that I have stagnant wages, it’s that my wages don’t grow to correspond with inflation, and this is clearly something Drew Carey (or his writers) has no clue about.
For those of us with one income, and who prefer not to go into debt, and who have children who need to be fed and educated there is most definitely a problem. It is all we can do to stay on top of things, and we can’t afford to save, even if it was profitable (which with the fall of the dollar it most definitely isn’t.) Where we used to pay <100$ for groceries and buy pretty much anything we wanted even only a few years ago, today we pay several times that, and we clip coupons like crazy and forgo things we want every week (like fruits and such) simply because we can’t afford them.
I appreciate a lot of what Drew is doing, but since neither he nor his handlers apparently has a freaking clue what they’re talking about, perhaps they should shut up.
Going out and finding a handful of people who have nice toys and are considered middle class is not conclusive evidence of the state of our economy or of the middle class as a whole. Not anymore than finding a handful of people sleeping on park benches is. That’s a horrible fallacy of logic and frankly a magazine who has the gall to go by the name “Reason” and publish tripe like this ought to be ashamed of themselves.
I agree the problem is not “corporate fat cats” but that doesn’t mean there’s not a problem.
I echo Mark’s sentiments and would like to add one more.
The end closes infuriatingly by saying that if we valued our family time more, then we would truly “understand” how well off we are. That argument is a sham when put into factual context.
Almost every european country allows more vacation and “family” time than almost all American jobs. Americans definitely need more vacation time to be on par with their peers, and we work enormous amounts of time.
I really don’t know where this “reasoning” comes from, but, this whole thing seems silly.
Economics is a science, but just because that’s true doesn’t mean everyone who talks about it either a) actually approaches it that way or b) knows what they’re talking about.
Most of them are just pulling crap out of thin air (cf Keynes) and generally don’t even begin to care about things like “What does a properly functioning economy look like?” So not knowing how it functions, or what causes it to function that way they don’t understand how it breaks or why.
Look at their explanations for things like the dotcom bubble that busted ~2000. “There was a shock”. What shock? What caused it? “Er…it was a shock.” Morons. Can you imagine going to a doctor who didn’t have a clue as to what a healthy human body looked like or how it functioned but who was more than ready to pump you full of drugs to “fix” whatever it is that’s wrong with you. (Of course, they don’t know what that is either, or even if there *is* anything wrong, since they have no control to go by.)
One thing I notice that no one ever asked in that video was “How much money do you owe for all of your stuff?”.
The reason the middle class is being threatened isn’t because of some imaginary corporate war on the middle class, but because we’ve consumed way beyond our means.
It’s the policies of our government and the federal reserve that are going to destroy the middle class. Our government, for spending money it doesn’t have, and printing up the difference. The federal reserve is responsible for printing the money for the government, as well as keeping interest rates artificially low, which is in effect printing money for everyone else. These policies are destroying the value of our dollar, and that is what is going to cause problems for the middle class, even more for the poor.
That doesn’t excuse people who are consuming beyond their means. They’re eventually going to have to pay for all of their consumption. They will blame corporations, the government, and anyone else they can point a finger at, but will miss the culprit staring back at them in the mirror.
As we become more efficient at producing goods, the price SHOULD go down. It’s interesting to look at the areas in which prices aren’t going down, such as healthcare, and see that those are the areas in which the government has the most involvement, but that’s a different topic all together.
To the people who are complaining:
Children are a choice. And when you make the choice to have kids, you do so understanding that you’re making economic sacrifices.
That said, I’ll bet most of you watched the game on a nice TV last night. I’ll bet your houses were well heated. I’ll bet you and your kids have cell phones, so you have to worry less about them, knowing you can reach them any time, at just about any location. I’ll bet you ate well, too.
The point of the movie is not that we’re all swimming in money, it’s that simply measuring wages and incomes as a sign of our well being doesn’t tell the whole story. We have immeasurably better lives than we did twenty or fifteen or even ten years ago, because the money we do make buys us more.
BTW, yes, Drew is rich. But his writers work for the Reason Foundation, a nonprofit. I know them. They aren’t rich. But they do have some perspective when it comes to economic history.
Injecting a little neuroscience into the discussion. One of the interesting things discovered over the last 20 years is that the basal ganglia - which controls your brain’s dopamine reward system - pumps out dopamine based on anticipated versus actual level of reward.
That is, if you eat a piece of pizza that tastes about as good as you expect it to, then you get a little dopamine. If it’s the best pizza ever, then you get a whole lot more dopamine, b/c the reward was greater then anticipated……until that level of taste becomes the newly anticpated level of reward.
The whole point of this is that how your brain measures your reward is contingent on how good things are now, so no matter how good you have it now ($150K/year, 3000sf house)- your brain demands escalation if you want that euphoric feeling from a dopamine release. The very mechanism that the brain uses to measure goodness traps us into a “rat race,” if you don’t remind yourself how good you have it.
Perspective, the media don’t care about it and only paint black and white. Too bad they live in their ivory towers. Katie Curric made the quip once about her having to take out a mortgage to fill her gas tank. I guess her $15 million/year is stretched to thin. We all spend too much on things we “need” and then many whine we don’t have enough for vital needs when the prices rise. Lack of fiscal responsibility is no reason to whine, get rid of a few of your TV’s, get a smaller house, stop buying the latest thing that hits the market for bragging rights, use that lump between your shoulders and make up a budget. Don’t max out your credit cards, think BIG PICTURE and not TODAY, NOW. Just elect Hillary, she will take care of all your needs, you won’t have to think anymore for yourself.
And just how does one go about destroying middle class? Do you make more folk rich? Well, that is happening, but not at the rates it would take. Make more people poorer? poverty index has been stationary, albeit a + or - a percentage point…So where is the middle class going if there is a squeeze?
I always thought that the percentage of what we commonly think of middle class is expanding. I like what the video demonstrated in that, its not what you earn, but rather how long you have to work to purchase items.
I have been broke in my life. Dead broke. No money for lunch, no money for breakfast. maybe, just maybe, some for some dinner (Ramen noodles, thou art my saviour). Did I want more? Yes. Did I get more money? Yes. Have things improved? Yes! Would I like more? Sure, but I can also go without if needed. I am an absolute firm believer that we are better, and are improving as a whole. Yes, some poor guy & family may get laid off, and they see it as a squeeze. I get that. However, most aren’t seeing that, and fewer are.
Come on down to TX if you want a job. We cannot fill all the technical positions at my company, and many others are having the same problem. No state income taxes, relatively low cost of living, and a housing market that is bucking national trends. Especially in the Houston area, folks. Just look at the job boards and see…
Opportunity abounds!!! What a country!!
Anecdotes and cherry picked data do not make a strong argument.
You compare the costs of cars and cell phones today to their cost when they first hit the market. Of course they were more expensive then, they were new technology! You should have shown graphs of the costs of these items over time instead of comparing today to the time in history when the prices were highest.
Clearly we are heading towards a recession, which will hurt the middle class more than the wealthy.
I could be better off if I managed my middle class income better. But I’m too busy playing with all my cool toys.
The real war on the middle class consists of convoluted idiotic tax laws. In my humble opinion, the frustrating and unecessary complexity of the income tax is all the proof I need that our government hates us. No one would ever do that to someone they respect and care about.
Radley,
Libertarians, for demanding a free market, sure don’t have any idea how to actually market what they’re selling. Go to a middle class person and tell them, “Hey, you’re well off! Feel better! You’re whining!” Think that works?
People don’t consider the world in relation to what it was ten years ago. They think about the world in relation to what it is now. Am I better off than my grandmother? Sure. What does that mean though? She was better off than her grandmother. What did that mean?
You can’t lecture people about how good they’re feeling if they’re not feeling good. You can’t tell them to feel better if they don’t. And you certainly can’t say, “Well, you’re better off than you were 10 years ago.” That doesn’t work. You guys have to find some other way to sell the idea.
RB, yes, children are a choice, but they were a choice my parents were apparently better able to make. They had five children, we were all warm, dry, well fed, and watched a lot of TV. My father was the only breadwinner, working a blue-collar job. The only debt was the house. Even without the bigger, better toys, do you think that is still doable today? If today both parents would have to work to maintain that environment, or the working parent would have to work more, then by the measure of time with family, things are worse. I know several families with a stay-at-home parent, but all of them have one or two children. It’s not difficult for most middle-classers to do if they cut back on the debt and toys and live a reasonably frugal life. Basically, if they live like my parents did. But I don’t know any larger families that have managed it.
I agree about media-hyped bad news being part of the problem, but that was by far the worst DC videos I’ve seen. It boils down to anecdotal evidence and comparing costs to nearly a century ago. I think a decade-by-decade look at costs–including heat, food, and clothing–would make for a much more substantial video.
Wouldn’t it have been more honest if Drew, or his writers or minions, asked the people at Castaic Lake how they paid for the toys they had? How many would have said they were riding their home equity loans or working a second job so they could afford a toy. How many of those people ‘owned’ their toys vs. how many of them ‘owned’ a bank note and the bank was graciously allowing them to use their stuff until it gets repossessed?
If it’s true that we’re better off than how come savings aren’t going up? How come wages are stagnant? How come there are so many purchases on credit? How come people are paying less and less to the credit card companies each month?
Prof.
The shortcommings I see with the piece are that rather than point out the problems looming in our economy, they just say “Everything is great, there are no problems here!”.
Yes, we have it good here today, the problem is that we have it too good. We’ve borrowed and spent ourselves into such debt, that in order to claw our way out of it, we’re going to have to give up some of the things that we now take for granted. This is going to come as a percieved hit in our standard of living. Does that mean that we’re going to have millions of people starving to death in the streets? Not likely. More likely is that our ability to purchase luxury goods will decline as the market rights itself, and then we’ll come back up to where we should be.
Pointing at the price of a technology when it is first discovered, then pointing out how much cheaper it is now, seems a bit disingenuous. Rather, they should be looking at the price for necessities, which will undoubtedly be rising (just wait until gas is 6 or 7 bucks a gallon). Also keep in mind that right now, we’re just in the beginning of what is about to come.
Wow, and to think that if the camera-phones are even cheaper and more technologically advanced ten years from now, I’ll still be “better off” even if the government were managing to crush another 10% out of me over and above what it’s grabbing now — right?
Everybody on this list should just shut the effin’ hell up and go read “Laws of the Jungle” right now: http://www.geocities.com/thornton_46/jlaws.html?2005
Drew is a *clown* who cannot distinguish between government’s increasing gouge, and the ability of thinner slices of remnant productivity to buy technological gadgets.
I think Drew Carey would be the first to argue that the government takes far too much of our money. The video is an argument against bigger government, not in favor.
To Radley,
Children are a choice. And when you make the choice to have kids, you do so understanding that you’re making economic sacrifices.
Talk about a strawman. Did you even read what I wrote? Yes, I’m going to have to make choices, but I wasn’t comparing my grocery bill PREkids to my bill POSTkids. I was comparing my bill with kids a few years ago to my bill with-kids now. And no, increased consumption doesn’t explain a 300% increase in costs.
As I said, yes, some items are going down in cost. But as another poster said, those where government is involved are not. Particularly items like groceries, education, and health care. Amazingly, areas where the government chooses to not report on them in inflation metrics.
That said, I’ll bet most of you watched the game on a nice TV last night.
Actually, I didn’t watch it, and if I had, I’d have been watching it on my single TV, which is 2 years old. And it is the third tv I’ve owned in the last 15 years.
I’ll bet your houses were well heated.
Yes, it is. And I’m thankful for a market that is mostly free to be able to provide me with that technology. Of course, I’m paying about 50% more to heat it this year than I did last year.
I’ll bet you and your kids have cell phones
Nope. I have one because I have to, and my wife has one that’s prepaid for emergencies. My kids have none.
I’ll bet you ate well, too.
Relative to what? To a third world country? Absolutely. Compared to how I ate 5 years ago? No, not even close. (And yes, I had the same number of children then, and lived in the same place.)
The point of the movie is not that we’re all swimming in money, it’s that simply measuring wages and incomes as a sign of our well being doesn’t tell the whole story. We have immeasurably better lives than we did twenty or fifteen or even ten years ago, because the money we do make buys us more.
twenty? Maybe. Fifteen? Probably. Ten - questionable.
Yes, in general technology is getting better. The tattered remains of our Free Market economy are still, crippled as they are, generally moving in a better direction.
However, over the last 4 years particularly our government has overcome even its ability to keep things going. The credit expansion, devaluation of the dollar, growing regulation, and rapidly expanding debt are killing us.
Yes, costs are going down, but the number of “dollars” needed to cover those same costs are skyrocketing.
We all spend too much on things we “need” and then many whine we don’t have enough for vital needs when the prices rise.
Speak for yourself. I buy few, if any luxury items. I work in the computer industry and haven’t upgraded any computers in my house in years. I tend to buy used parts to keep things alive.
I never buy new cars, and I usually do my best to pay cash or at least pay most in cash and pay it off within a couple years. Which means buying (quality) older vehicles for less.
I own a smaller home - in fact my kids share rooms because it’s smaller. We also live in the country to help keep costs down.
Lack of fiscal responsibility is no reason to whine, get rid of a few of your TV’s
I agree. Of course, I only own one tv, and it’s old.
get a smaller house, stop buying the latest thing that hits the market for bragging rights, use that lump between your shoulders and make up a budget.
Already on one. We have almost no debt except the house, and what is left of the loan on our van.
Don’t max out your credit cards, think BIG PICTURE and not TODAY, NOW.
We don’t even have any credit cards.
So basically, your assessment, while probably valid for some people, isn’t valid for me. In fact, I’m going to guess it’s not valid for anyone actually complaining about the economy within the middle class structure. The people you should probably be aiming this at are the people in the video.
The people who, btw, in a few years are going to be begging for a bailout, or who will otherwise be filing for bankruptcy when they can’t pay the loans and CC bills.
You can blame them for being irresponsible if you like, and it would be a valid argument. But you also have to lay blame on a government that artificially depresses the interest rate and devalues the currency. As a result, people have no incentive to save, but only to spend.
I didn’t see any argument for or against big government. The video seemed to me to be saying “Quit whining ’cause you’ve got it good.”
I already know that my life is good, and that I have lots of cool stuff. I’m worried that the government (with the help and full support of the middle class) is going to screw up my way of life by destroying our economy. I have no desire to have to wheel a cart full of cash to the store to buy a loaf of bread.
So, yes, there is an attack on the middle class, the media is just pointing the finger at the wrong people. Many politicians claim to have the solution to our impending problems, but I don’t feel most of them even realize what the problem is. The problem is, the middle class doesn’t want to take the medicine for what ails it. We don’t want to see the light of day, so we’re going to keep doing the wrong things until we spiral down into a world of shit, then we can begin climbing back out.
Mark:
Allow me to say with ultimat respect that you are UNAMERICAN.
It is the existence of people like you that causes Al Quaeda to hate us for our freedoms. No credit card debt? You obviously hate the American financial system. No New Cars, you obviously hate the japanese owned car companies that build all those fine cars in the USA. Only one TV? How can you watch FOX and CNN and MSNBC and one of the old 3 networks simultaneously?
Why I bet you probably don’t have cell phones, how selfish of you to not allow anyone who wishes to intrude on you at any time they wish. How UNAMERICAN of you to not allow your every movement to be followable by the security services. You sir are a danger — worse than that, you are UNAMERICAN.
Bruce: I guarantee you that the price of automobiles, measured in constant dollars, has fallen consistently since 1910.
We all spend too much on things we “need” and then many whine we don’t have enough for vital needs when the prices rise.
Speak for yourself, like Mark my family lives frugally. We have to or we don’t eat. We have no cable/satellite, only one pay as you go cell phone for emergences. The biggest “need” that we have is the computer because we use eBay. Until Christmas when my in-laws gave us a digital camera and mp3 player we didn’t have thoughts. You want to say that we’re better off than we were only 10 years ago. Strange, my husband and I can both remember only one parent going to work (Dad) and being able to pay all of the bills. My husband has to drive anywhere from 1-2 hours for a decent paying job, because in WV there are no high paying jobs in the medical field unless you’re a PH or above, and I‘m having to look into going back into the workforce. This is better?
Lack of fiscal responsibility is no reason to whine, get rid of a few of your TV’s
I’d love to have a few tv’s to get rid of, but I’ve only ever had 1, the current one being at least 7 years old.
get a smaller house, stop buying the latest thing that hits the market for bragging rights, use that lump between your shoulders and make up a budget.
Done that and keep coming up short due to not enough coming in as going out.
Don’t max out your credit cards, think BIG PICTURE and not TODAY, NOW.
I have one with under $500 because our car needed tires. Something about having to go to work.
Children are a choice. And when you make the choice to have kids, you do so understanding that you’re making economic sacrifices.
Oh I love this one. So you tell me why my husbands parents were able to have 7 kids in one and 5 in the other, respectively with one person working. We’re having problems with 1 kid, never mind this assumption that we have “kids”. I’ve been married for 5 years and finding out that I was pregnant was a surprise, something you don’t think of when your on birth control.
For once I have to wonder what the heck did Drew Carey take before coming up with this video?
My two cents.
My wife is from the Philippines. I have always used the “time someone has to work to buy item x” as the only realistic way of explaining value, since currency exchange rates bounce around. My American dollars go a long way in that country, but what’s really relevant is how long people have to work to buy something.
So, for example, here in America someone working at McDonald’s makes $7/hour starting. The most expensive value meal is typically $6 or so here in Nashville. In contrast, the starting pay is about PHP20/hour in Manila, and the value meal is PHP80-PHP100. The US worker must work about an hour to buy a meal where he works, the Filipino worker must work 4+ hours to buy the same meal.
It’s not unusual for the lower-class workers there to put in 6 or 7 12-16 hour days each week, just to get by. Cars cost the same there as here, so they’re a luxury item.
Looking only at America, when I was a kid, being poor meant that you had no car. I know - my parents owned a grocery store that sat near a poor neighborhood. The folks would walk over the buy their groceries. Over the years, being poor came to mean that you had only one car and one television.
My house is 3 times the size of the house that I grew up in. There are bigger - much bigger houses around here. I think the tendency is to compare your house/car/whatever to the biggest and best that you see. It’s really sad.
As an American, you are either rich or you almost certainly have the ability to be so, at least by world standards. Just because someone else has it better (or at least is able to keep up the appearance of having it better) doesn’t mean that you’re not well off.
I can tell you everything that’s wrong with this country with one simple story. After Hurricane Katrina, there were former residents of New Orleans and that area on TV talking about how their job had disappeared, they had to leave the area until they found out what was happening, etc. People were living on the dole in hotels and such. I was talking to a Mexican (illegal immigrant) one day after watching a news story about it all. He said that his friend had called from Mississippi and told him he needed to come down there, as there was far more work than workers. Which story is right? I think we know.
America gives you the framework to live a great life if you want it. Be thankful for what you have, and quit worrying about Bill Gates having more.
Nice piece, but he didn’t address consumer borrowing at all.
The “Middle Class Squeeze” is most often brought up as an argument for government intrusion, e.g. raising minimum wage, limiting salaries of CEOs, requiring health insurance to be paid by an employer so the employee doesn’t have to try to buy something unaffordable etc. This video is trying to show why one shouldn’t put weight on this argument for increased government intrusion. I didn’t see it saying anything about the government helping/harming the middle class directly, but then again I don’t think that was the point.
I live in Texas and I see tons of middle class people who drive nice cars, have boats, have large gun collections, have big TVs and surround sound systems, etc. Many of these are people who never completed college, but they may do skilled labor. Oil field work is big, but people do very well as electricians, plumbers, and such.
I know of middle class families with 4-6 children that get by just fine down here. Double up on kids in rooms, pass down clothes/bookstoys, rent movies instead of going to the theatre, etc… there are tons of ways to save money with multiple children. I only have 2 with a third on the way and it is still easy to splurge on the kids. The more kids, too, the more a stay-at-home parent ‘makes’ by not having to pay babysitters etc. And not having to pay an expense means not having to pay taxes on it either (because when you make money to buy those goods or services, the feds will get their cut and possibly your state as well).
Half-price bookstores are great, DVDs often go on sale for $5.99 or less, and coupons help out at restaurants. Kids eat free on some days at Luby’s when an adult meal is purchased. Standing in line the day after Thanksgiving is worth it if you are making a big purchase (plan to get the most expensive items first). Save up money and buy the car when you have enough instead of taking out a loan for it. Casillero del Diablo cabernet sauvignon is a great wine for <$10. My Honda Accord and Toyota Sienna are inexpensive, drive nicely, and don’t eat too much gas, and will probably last 10 or more years with only basic maintenance.
Maybe it’s just because I live in Texas… I guess the state you live in is a choice, though, too.
Just think how much better all of this would be, though, if the government were smaller and less intrusive!
MC: “So, for example, here in America someone working at McDonald’s makes $7/hour starting. The most expensive value meal is typically $6 or so here in Nashville.”
I was amazed to learn that in the late 50s, early in my father’s career as a pipefitter, the cost of a motel room and three meals on the road was roughly equivalent to one hour’s pay (although his employer paid those costs, of course).
Even this libertarian bristles at an equation of cheap technology with a “good standard of living”. Are we really that superficial? Wait till 2008 is over before you stick your foot in your mouth, heh.
Seems obvious to me Drew is saying ‘Hey Shitheads! Things have never been better!! Quit parroting the nightly news mantra, quit feeling sorry for yourselves and look at what’s good!!!’ Is that such bad advice? Is he wrong??
Let’s break it all down, shall we? When (economically speaking) has it EVER been better then it is today? You don’t even have to back it up with text, just tell me when YOU feel its been better. I’m curious to know wtf the grievers here are pining for.
Robert S: “Seems obvious to me Drew is saying ‘Hey Shitheads!”
No, no, no. He was just calling Lou Dobbs a shithead.
When (economically speaking) has it EVER been better then it is today?
This question only demonstrates that you have failed to understand the problem. Because of the nature of our economic system and system of government, we continue to improve in *some* areas in spite of our government’s best effort to destroy us.
However, we have also continually gotten worse in other areas, at the same time, as in those areas the Government’s particular focus has had more destructive impact.
Saying that net we’re better off fails to take into account that some people are more impacted by these specific areas of greater damage than others are.
I guess I’m just poor. I used to consider myself middle-class, until I saw this.
Many of the naysayers just aren’t looking far enough back, or borrowing doom from the future (in which case, it’s consequences coming home to roost, and accepting responsibility for them is paramount for a libertarian).
I *like* cheap running water, cold AND hot. I like (relatively) cheap electricity - I’d like more nuclear power plants so it could be even cheaper, too. Some of my friends’ parents, who are still alive, had none of these luxuries, either because they simply were not available, or were too expensive.
Advancing technology has touched too many areas of life to discount it out of hand as being a stastistical fluke, as well.