Quote:
Originally Posted by se15679875
Good post. Regarding the bolded part, again it's important to make the distinction between the following two statements:
Statement 1: A lot of rich people wear rolexes
Statement 2: A lot of Rolex owners aren't rich.
Both of these statements are true. If you limit your analysis a priori to only rich people, then I'm sure a lot of them own Rolexes and other comparable brands. I don't have statistics on the percentage of rich people who own rolexes, but I don't doubt that your casual observation likely maps very closely to reality.
My statistic deals with the percentage of rolex owners who are rich (well, $1M isn't rich but whatever, that's not the point of the discussion).
There are similar statistics for car brands (although I don't have them off hand). "What percentage of rich people drive luxury cars?", and "what percentage of luxury car drivers are rich?" are two very different questions.
Imagine a room full of 100 people. 1 guy is worth >$1M. 9 are worth $100k-$1M. 90 are worth <$100k.
The guy worth >$1M wears a Rolex. The 9 guys worth $100k-$1M wear Rolexes. 20 guys in the <$100k range own rolexes.
Assume >$1M is "rich."
(1) What percentage of rich people own rolexes? 100% (1/1)
(2) What percentage of rolex owners are rich? 3% (1/30)
(3) What percentage of people are rich? 1% (1/100)
The statistics I posted are comparing (2) and (3) (6% > 1%). You may have been alluding to (1) with your observation.
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Good clarification. The part of my post that you emboldened, yes; it referred to #1. The rest, not really, but I think you understand that too.
I knew what the stat you cited meant. I more importantly wanted to make the larger point that assuming things about folks' financial position based on their "stuff" is fraught with all sorts of risk for being wrong with one's assumptions. That was all.
All the best.