Marketing

[Mise]

On top of that, Germans do not actually earn very much compared to those in other European countries - less than in France and Spain and about two-thirds what a comparable British worker has.

Wuh? This can't possibly be true.

 

[Borachio]

Yes, I heard that too. It's a difficult claim to substantiate, though. As it's hard to compare like with like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Advertising as a means of providing perfect market information within the context of the perfect market idea could be considered not just useful, but essential. But the market doesn't function that way and as a result can often (but not always) be annoying at best and deceptive and a barrier to competition at worse.

 

[Deaths Advocate]

Wuh? This can't possibly be true.

I think its a case of low home ownership in Germany compared to say in the UK, where it is something all aspire to?

 

[Mise]

It says they don't earn as much - that should be fairly easy to substantiate... (and shouldn't have anything to do with home ownership rates)

 

[Traitorfish]

Isn't rented accommodation generally more expensive than mortgaged accommodation? If that was the main difference, it would suggest, if anything, that British wages should be lower than German wages rather than the other way around.

 

[Borachio]

It says they don't earn as much - that should be fairly easy to substantiate... (and shouldn't have anything to do with home ownership rates)

Then Germans do earn less than others.

 

[Deaths Advocate]

It says they don't earn as much - that should be fairly easy to substantiate... (and shouldn't have anything to do with home ownership rates)

I was suggesting that without a house to buy, lower wages go further and have suffered less inflation than other nations have?

 

[Mise]

Then Germans do earn less than others.

That's disposable income... Not average wage (despite the title of the article). This other link has Germany well ahead of the UK and Spain, and pretty much on par with France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_in_Europe_by_monthly_average_wage

EDIT: There is "gross wage" in there actually, and Germany has a higher average wage than both France and Spain...

 

[amadeus]

Could you not tell me about the holocaust without implying that it would be beneficial?

Most would treat information about the systematic killing of Jews, homosexuals, etc. differently than you would my informing you of a new product; the context in which people receive information itself changes how they react to that information.

But you've already considered this as a possibility:

Maybe in the context of selling a product it would be impossible to inform someone of it without trying to persuade them to buy it ...

(Edit.)

... I just think its weird that so many people readily accept such deceptive practices as "normal" or "ok." I think we ought to get pissed off at people who do such things.

Can you tell me what these deceptive practices are? For example, if I design a video game box to show graphics that aren't in-game, is this a deceptive practice?

 

[metatron]

That's disposable income... Not average wage (despite the title of the article). This other link has Germany well ahead of the UK and Spain, and pretty much on par with France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_in_Europe_by_monthly_average_wage

EDIT: There is "gross wage" in there actually, and Germany has a higher average wage than both France and Spain...

Borachio's list is PPP.
And thus it justifies the BBC's claim since apparently "disposable income (PPP)" is what they meant (ignoring whether it's a good idea to pick this metric in this case, or ever).

 

[Mise]

Disposable income certainly isn't the same as wages... If they meant disposable income they should have said disposable income, instead of saying that Germans earn 2/3rds of what a Brit earns. And even then, it's 72% -- closer to 3/4 than 2/3.

The BBC article is just plain wrong.

 

[metatron]

Disposable income certainly isn't the same as wages... If they meant disposable income they should have said disposable income, instead of saying that Germans earn 2/3rds of what a Brit earns. And even then, it's 72% -- closer to 3/4 than 2/3.

It's an article about a dude extrapolating stuff from a dinner expierience. I would hazard the guess that they prioritized accessability over semantic precision.

 

[Mise]

Well it's not even semantic precision - he's literally saying that Germans earn less than the French, Spanish, and British, when this clearly isn't true... It's not poetic license, it's just a lie.

 

[metatron]

it's just a lie.

Well, coveying false information wasn't exactly the intention here.
Plus, i knew what they were trying to say.
Doesn't that conflict to some degree with characterising the statement as a "lie"?

I'm pretty confident the BBC can plead Hanlon's razor here.

To lie is to deliver a false statement to another person which the speaking person knows is not the whole truth, intentionally.

 

[Mise]

Now who's prioritising semantic precision

All they had to say was "after taxes" or something at the start of the sentence. Not hard is it? Would that make an article about German dinner parties any less accessible? Germans do, in fact, earn more than the French or Spanish, and probably more than the British, too.

 

[Borachio]

It's pretty much a meaningless metric however you measure it.

It tells us nothing about the purchasing power of each average citizen. Which might have some bearing on somebody's quality of life. Or, it might not.

 

[Mise]

PPP adjusts for purchasing power.

 

[Borachio]

Oh. Shows how much I know, then.

Looks like the BBC has made an error. And not for the first or last time.

 

[Glassfan]

I get a lot of my income from online sportswriting. Just about every media outlet, print or otherwise, is supported primary from advertising. When my readers use adblock, it takes revenue away from my website, which means they can't pay me as much for what I write.

We charge people per ad view, not per ad click.

Please tell me how I can get adblock!

Seriously, I was willing to pay for Pandora on my Kindle just to get rid of the damn commercials. If you were from that state up north, you might be sufficiently cunning and diobolical to concoct a shrewd scheme to have your readers pay you not to include the ads. You'd make millions!