Confidentiality Expires For 1940 Census Records 311
Hugh Pickens writes writes "In spring of 1940, the Census Bureau sent out more than 120,000 fact-gatherers, known as 'enumerators,' to survey the nation's 33 million homes and 7 million farms. Now as the 72 years of confidentiality expires, the National Archives website buckled under the load as the 1940 census records were released and 1.9 million users hit the archives servers in the first four hours the data went public and at one point, the Archives said, its computers were receiving 100,000 requests per second. Data miners will have the opportunity to pick and chip through more than 3.8 million digital images of census schedules, maps and other sociological minutiae. What will we learn from this mother lode? The pivotal year 1940 'marked the beginnings of a shift from a depressed peacetime to a prosperous wartime,' says David E. Kyvig, author of Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1939. The vast data dump, Kyvig says, will allow historians 'to look closely at particular communities and how people within them were doing in terms of employment, income and material comforts.' The 1940 census was the first Census that looked deeper into the details of much of American life. 'As we see how the country evolved over the subsequent 20 years, where we have aggregate census data ... we ought to be able to see more clearly how government spending bettered everyday life, confirmed Keynesian economic theory and revealed that, before the war, the New Deal did too little, rather than too much, to stimulate the U.S. economy.""
Get all 18TB of it while it's hot.
Re:correlation != causation (Score:3, Interesting)
Keynesian economics did increase the total workforce participation, but your right about the destroyed industrialized countries being a part of it, so did the neo-colonialism of the late 19th and early 20th century. Now that we can no longer access such cheap resources, and don't have a significant advantage in manufacturing, we (and also Europe) are left with an inflated economic bubble that's collapsing. Simply put is that our total factor productivity is too low and resources too high, to be able to demand the amount of money that we expect from our labor. And though Keynesian economics might help by being able to tax unproductive consumption, it also hinges on the ability to target more productive investments, which is essentially trading consumer spending for capital expenditures. But even if you completely automate production of a thing, say for instance the mining of copper which now requires demolishing entire mountains, its not going to lower the price enough to make it as affordable as it used to be.
18 Terabytes?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone gonna torrent that?
Re:As Krugman says (Score:5, Interesting)
This is called "The Broken Window Fallacy", but is essentially a cornerstone of alot of economic policy, because rebuilding things (that were destroyed) creates jobs. In fact I hear alot about 'creating jobs', for example recent talks in my state for a casino, even though its a negative sum game. Even part of our throw away culture is defined by the measurement of GDP for economic success, since the sale of a single part contributes less than the sale of a whole new device. Now its no surprise that warfare, exploitation of and shipping resources around the world, may have not been the most efficient use of our time. But I have a belief that had the greedy capitalist pigs, not gone to war to protect their 'private property' from the 'communist looters', we would have ended up with a more 'free market' than we have now. Furthermore the more homogeneous development and lower diminished returns on both natural and human capital, would have increased aggregate human development and economic productivity, and probably have reduced the population and factored resource inefficiencies.
America has a god given right to demand a bigger piece of the pie, even if that means destroying some of it in the process, because were exceptional and gods chosen people. Which is essentially our 19th and early 20th century intellectual rhetoric, we found what was essentially virgin land that we exploited, in order to create our version of order in the world.
Re:Why was it confidential? (Score:5, Interesting)
LOL human death back then, as now, was a bathtub distribution, like electronics parts. So most people died as little kids or elderly. Back then pretty much all preemies died as a general rule, for example, unlike now. All the "average" means is the ratio of how many died as a baby vs died as an old man. I'd guess that means about two kids died young for every 8 or so that died elderly, which seems to fit in with actual genealogical data I have on my ancestors...
The "real story" (in quotes because even pages of and pages of this stuff is still merely a summary of the real sources) can be read at
http://www.census.gov/history/www/reference/genealogy/the_72_year_rule.html [census.gov]
The exact number 72 was selected because in 1952 they wanted to give away the 1880 census information. Essentially declassify it by transfer from the BC to the NA. I think you can see the math there, 1952 - 72 = 1880 The exact 72 year range has stuck since then.
The legal BS behind the general range of "more than 70 years" was selected, as you'll read at the link above, because the census officers had to / have to take an oath to never release the data. Assuming someone lied on their application and got hired anyway at 10 (unlikely), and assuming that even in extenuating circumstances there are no govt employees of any sort over the age of 82 (unlikely), that means waiting 72 years means the oath takers successfully did their duty and while it was in their power, blah blah blah, they never released the data. Essentially its your usual govt corruption. Technically according to the rule of the law the folks who gathered your 2010 census data will Never permit the release of the 2010 census data .... Never ... of course they'll be dead or retired eventually at which point it'll be released anyway in 2082, assuming the country doesn't self destruct first, at which time the oath takers will all be dead or retired.
Its legal bullshit because if you're convicted of a crime by a judge, just because a judge dies or retires doesn't mean you're a free man. Another example would be the priest who married me and my wife about a dozen years ago by the process of signing the marriage license recently died... that does not automagically make us single. Also from my military experience the death of a guy who classified a document doesn't automagically free that document.
If someone invents an immortality treatment, we'll have to come up with some new legal technicality bullshit. But for now 72 years works and is the tradition.
Re:As Krugman says (Score:5, Interesting)
No, he doesn't. He's said the right kind of war would help the economy, not that any war is a good thing. Krugman is consistently anti-war. He's also said an arms built-up to fight an alien invasion would be good for the economy and have great secondary effects (from research and whatnot.) He's also not seriously advocated that we arm up to fight an imaginary alien invasion.
But you can sit their in your smug, self-righteous libertarianism and keep pretending Krugman is a hack who hasn't consistently made very accurate predictions and the Nobel prize in economics is a fraud
Re:As Krugman says (Score:2, Interesting)
He plans to do exactly that. At some point, their claim that black is white and up is down is all libertarians have.
Re:correlation != causation (Score:5, Interesting)
not sure if trolling, or just revisionist
fannie+freddie were not forced by law to to give subprime loans. they were compelled by the market forces, as propelled by de/unregulated banks (2004 lowered Debt Capital Rule, unregulated derivatives and CDO market, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, DIDMCA, adjustable-rate mortages), which allowed the major institutions to over-leverage themselves while dealing out predatory ARMs.
if fannie+freddie had not existed the 2008 FC would have still happened in the private sector alone. northern rock, countrywide, bear stearns, lehman brothers, merril lynch would have still all collapsed/required government takeover. the (de)regulatory framework simply allowed them astronomic profits at substantial risk, with the knowledge that any failure would cause systemic collapse, thus requiring government action, thus mitigating any risk to the personal wealth of the execs and traders.
yes, fannie+freddie were headed by some fuckups that made decisions very similar to the large banks. but they were the decisions of private executives; these organizations were not compelled by law to seek inappropriate mortgages and then leverage them on the CDO market. they were compelled by high profits and low effective risk, just like the other speculative lenders.
Copyright vs Census (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:18 Terabytes?! (Score:5, Interesting)
I've done a fair bit of genealogy. It's a decent geek hobby, it doesn't cost too much, takes a large amount of time, and requires good problem solving skills and the ability to judge and verify information. Plus it tends to tie in with a lot of history and geography, which I'm interested in. I'd recommend it.
I'm not a professional genealogist, but I have found situations which may explain the conflicting information for your father. It could be due to two people with similar names, or misinformation on public records, etc.
Someone I'm probably descended from lived about 50 miles away from someone else with the same name in colonial times. They were about the same age. They both married, and some of their children share the same name as well. Its common to see details from both individuals in other family trees.
A similar situation exists with myself - when I went to school, there was someone in the same school with my name. Different birthdate, but roughly the same age. Anyone who attempts a family tree with me in it will probably run into the same problem.
Public records are not immune to this either. Some of them show interesting errors. The state and the federal government disagree on the date my grandmother died - the state thinks she died a day earlier than the feds. Anyone who hasn't seen the records would consider any genealogical research with the wrong date to be "sloppy". Nowadays, with the Internet, its pretty easy to get both records. But even 15 years ago, having retrieved just one record wouldn't be unusual. Another case would be a great-grandmother of mine, who had the amazing ability to age only 8 or 9 years between each census - she kept lying about her age on every census in order to be younger than she actually was. (In addition, her children could never agree on her father's name either - marriage records and the death certificate give conflicting information.)
Of course, a large problem with genealogy today, especially Internet genealogy, is the severe amount of copying that goes on among amateur genealogists, especially with the lack of verification and citation for the source of information. Citations are very important when it comes to research - there are going to be mistakes in records, and you always want to know the sources when it comes to conflicting information in order to verify which one is correct. Someone may be listed as a son or daughter on the census, but instead turn out to be a stepson or stepdaughter or other relative. Or perhaps a person's name was recorded incorrectly. Blindly following this information results in flawed family trees. But some people are not patient enough to do this, and instead tend to add people without verification or hunting down the source. These are the same people who tend to copy from other individuals family trees, which compounds the problem.
This is one reason why I won't publish my family tree, in its current form, online - I have links and information in my family tree that are, quite frankly, a "best guess". As long as the notes and citations are included, it's clear that the information requires further verification, but if put on-line, the information would most likely be copied into countless other family trees and stripped of citations and notes. I'd rather not do that. ;)
As for the LDS's obsession with genealogy, I tend to really appreciate it. The amount of preservation of old records the LDS has done is amazing, regardless of the reasoning behind that. And really, post-death baptism shouldn't be too upsetting. If you're religion or lack of religion is so weak that a religious ceremony once you're long dead will put you in jeopardy, I think you're belief is misplaced.