Paul De Grauwe and co-author : "Rarely have statistics been misused so much for political purposes as when recently the ECB published the results of a survey of household wealth in the Eurozone countries."
"A recent ECB household-wealth survey was interpreted by the media as evidence that poor Germans shouldn’t have to pay for southern Europe. This column takes a look at the numbers. Whilst it’s true that median German households are poor compared to their southern European counterparts, Germany itself is wealthy. Importantly, this wealth is very unequally distributed, but the issue of unequal distribution doesn’t feature much in the press. The debate in Germany creates an inaccurate perception among less wealthy Germans that transfers are unfair."
Read : http://www.voxeu.org/article/are-germans-really-poorer-spaniards-italians-and-greeks.
How to lie with statistics ? Euh ... I beg your pardon ; civilised people do not lie ; they misuse statistics.
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