Fox News’ Visually Distorted Charts
FlowingData points out a recent graphic from a story on Fox News showing the unemployment rate changes under Obama. The numbers are presumably correct, but do not seem to correspond to the rise and fall of the visual, in which, for instance, 8.6 is a higher number than 8.8 or 8.9. Ah, the “Fox Chart” — what does it mean? Is it a work of postmodern art?
One In Seven Americans Lives On Food Stamps
Sad statistic of the day from IANS via Yahoo News:
Believe it or not, one in seven Americans – 15 percent of the country – now need government-provided food stamps simply to survive, according to latest government figures.
Nearly 46 million Americans receive food stamps out of a population of some 311 million people, the US Department of Agriculture, which administers what’s officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme reported Thursday.
The continued high unemployment and the weak US economy have contributed to the explosive growth of the food stamp programme with no end in sight to the monthly increases, CNN said noting that 27 million people were dependent on food stamps in October 2007…
Does ‘Public Opinion’ Really Exist?
Flip on cable news, and within twenty minutes the host will cite the latest survey as proof of which candidates should run for office and which foreign enemy we must now smite. Writing for New Left Media, John Brissenden tears apart the idea of opinion polls as a gauge for determining what anyone truly wants. The public may respond to opinion polls, but it’s the media, business, and political elite who compose the questions:
From its inception a century ago, and in its current construction, the terrain of ‘public opinion’ is far from being a neutral space where a representative democracy deliberates and resolves issues. At best, ‘public opinion’, as represented in opinion polls, is a deeply flawed mechanism for gauging the extent of wider support for a particular cause. At worst, it is hostile territory, constructed and owned by the ruling class.
In the 1920s, polling pioneers such as James Gallup…
The Happiest Person in America
Alvin Wong is happier than you — statistically speaking (which brings to mind the old saying, “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics,” but I digress). As ABC News reports, Mr. Wong is the exact statistical composite of the happiest person:
Alvin Wong always considered himself a happy guy.
“I get up in the morning and say, ‘I’m very fortunate. I’m living in Hawaii, doing what I want to do,’” Wong said. But when Wong, 69, learned he is the exact statistical composite of the happiest person in America, he wasn’t sure what to think.
“When The New York Times called and read off all the information about who this person is, I asked if it was a practical joke.”
According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, the happiest person in America is…
The Fail Files (Vol. I)
The expected ripostes have begun to trickle in from our inaugural post — especially from my favorite aggregation site, Disinfo.com. I anticipate quite a number of challenges to the self-evident notion that 1-1=0 from the Korporate Kabbalist crowd. So I thought I’d actually give a name to the series of posts I expect to file answering them, “The Fail Files” — reflecting the laughable durabilty of such a stupid notion as the Laffer Curve.
"You have slain my corporate master! Prepare to die!"
Okay, so here’s the first two questions I choose to answer*
1. Q: “But won’t our corporate masters simply pass their taxes on to us in the form of higher prices?”
A: Not statistically likely. There is an extremely weak correlation between increases in corporate income tax and inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index–less than 3%, in fact. Which is within the typical margin of error for a coin flip. See details…
Google Price Index Shows Deflation In U.S.
The U.S. federal government has long been accused of fudging its consumer price index (CPI) to show more or less growth or decline in prices, depending on political expediencies of the moment. Perhaps this new Google price index will help keep our government a bit more honest. Reported in the Financial Times via CNBC:
Google is using its vast database of web shopping data to construct the ‘Google Price Index’ – a daily measure of inflation that could one day provide an alternative to official statistics.
The work by Google’s chief economist, Hal Varian, highlights how economic data can be gathered far more rapidly using online sources. The official Consumer Price Index data are collected by hand from shops, and only published monthly with a time lag of several weeks.
At the National Association of Business Economists conference in Denver, Colorado, Mr Varian said that the GPI was a work in progress and…
