DISCLAIMER: The following post is aimed at statistics wonks and math nerds and those who want to mock certain newspapers only.

Two studies produced by the same organization seem to present conflicting numbers concerning the number of millionaires in the Bay Area. First off there's the World Wealth Report, which the Chron leaped upon today because it alleges that the Bay Area gained millionaires in 2008, up to 136,000 from 124,000 -- a statistic we couldn't find in the summary report we downloaded, but we'll trust it's written somewhere.

Then there's the U.S. Metro Wealth Index -- produced by Capgemini, the same consultants who do the World Wealth Report -- which shows completely different numbers for San Francisco, saying it lost 15% of its millionaire population in 2008, down to 121,000 from 143,000. There's also something fishy about the first numbers being quoted as the "9-county Bay Area" in the Chron, given how close they are to the second set of numbers which treat San Jose as a separate metro area. What does this teach us, children? Essentially that all these studies done by consultants, particularly those done ONE YEAR before a new decennial census and a full nine years since the last one, are complete bullshit and no one should trust them. Also: there are still a lot of rich people in this world.