Don’t know much about history
Don’t know much biology
Don’t know much about science book
Don’t know much about the French I took
This morning I stumbled across a lament that members of Congress didn’t have a better understanding of economics. I’d say the complaint was about accounting rather than economics but I don’t think that most Congressmen understand either particularly well. Now Robert VerBruggen is complaining that “financial experts” should have a better understanding of statistics. The article caught my eye because the subject is crime statistics in Chicago, something rather clearly understated by the official reckoning.
Now to be honest I’d be happy if elected officials, journalists, and pundits (professional or amateur) had the quantitative skills of infants. Sixty years ago Piaget thought that children didn’t develop quantitative skills (like the ability to identify whether one quantity was larger than another) until late preschool years. Thirty years ago Starkey and Cooper demonstrated that infants as young as four to six months had that particular quantitative skill known as numerosity.
This is apparently a skill that eludes many.
Frankly, I don’t think I would have ever gone down this path that the original reporter charted. I don’t think offduty cops are like the rest of the population — more likely to feel safe in situations where others would stay inside; more likely to engage an encounter; and more likely to report a crime.
At least in Chicago the homicide rate among police officers is a lot lower than it is in the population, generally. That’s something I always think about when I’m told how dangerous it is to be a police officer.
Also, I’m confused about using a crime in Chicago on the same day as a crime in surburban Belmont to make statistical claims about Chicago. I can’t do the math part here, but I can do analogy. One of these things is not like the other . . .
“…homicide rate among police officers is a lot lower than it is in the population, generally…”
Call me crazy, but I bet the police rate vis-Ã -vis the Austin neighborhood and police rate vis-Ã -vis Bannockburn differ……….
In any event. I believe a minority of “statistics” or “studies” I read. Getting old I guess. The publishers traffic in statistical chicanery. I don’t believe the published unemployment rate is 7%, its somewhere between 9-13%, and I don’t believe the inflation rate. We all know why they are published the way they are. (My favorite inflation excuse is the PCE – sans food, used by the Fed. I guess they don’t eat food.)
I wonder how many people realize the GDP number is really 2%? The reported excess is being produced and stored in the back forty or, in the case of auto, stuffed in the channel.
But sing along folks…………”happy days are here again!!……”
It is said that not passing the UE extension could actually lower UE from 7% down to 6.2% — something to do with more people dropping out of the employment stream, not being counted and thus, magic — as the employment participation recedes, so does the UE rate.
I put that Herman Hermit’s lyric in my resume and afterward got dozens of offers involving work in the history of French science.
I think they’re exaggerating the degree to which extending unemployment benefits disincentivizes taking jobs. If more jobs were being created, they might have a point. Under the circumstances not so much.
I know three people close to me that have lost jobs in the last six weeks. (My sister-in-law, a childhood friend and the husband of a friend of over 20 years.) In that time, I know two people that got jobs, and they’re among the hundreds or thousands of people at two or three removes from me that are looking, and one of those two already had a job. On net I’m minus two for people I ‘know’ managing to stay employed. And that’s three good jobs lost to be replaced by one middling job at best.
So not buying the alleged B+ economy touted by the Obama sycophants.
Hey Drew, what kind of deflator did they use on that GDP number? They’ve been fucking around with that for years now.
The Billion prices project correlates pretty well with the CPI. It follows online prices, so it may miss some prices, but so much is online now I suspect it is pretty good.
http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/
I would expect the gangs to make it a point to not kill cops, the surest way to bring on too much attention. Remove gang killings from Chicago’s homicides, and I suspect that the police probably have the same or slightly higher homicide rates.
Steve
Now the financial expert is challenging VerBruggen’s analysis of this issue as the “birthday problem.”
Inquiring minds want to know, what is this all supposed to prove? I’m not sure what an off-duty police officer’s crime victimization stats would reflect on anything. I can hypothesize like I did above why they might be higher than the regular population or lower.
ice
I think more relevant to the GDP number is the raw inventory build. Excess inventories are what make recessions. If one wants to justify the build and reported GDP they need to justify final sales pull through. Looked at the post-Christmas discounting?
But I know, I know. Recovery is “just around the corner.” Menzie Chin has been telling me so for 4 years……….
BTW – for real world experience from real world business owners and real world businesses…………not ivory tower types or those with Obama units to stroke or CNBC shills…….that would be me……….1.8 to 2.2% seems about right. But that’s before the ObamaCare tax hits. And the housing related interest rate increases are just creeping into the numbers.
Should be an interesting 6-9 months.
Also, for perspective. For those who look at Obama’s track record and say “well, things are now getting better,” (even though I don’t think they are) 4 years of screwing around is 10% of a standard 40 year working life. Thrown away. 10% of your working life, ESPECIALLY if in the early years, is a lot. Really important.
Hope and change, for dopes now in chains.
Whether it’s a David Horowitz or a Roger Simon type, former extreme leftists, who have since swung over to the right, seem to convey intriguing, well-honed perspectives of left-sided politics. They distill verbiage into kind of a truth serum analysis, which is not only provocative but also holds noteworthy granules of raw honesty in predicting the vision, process or next steps being accentuated in the democrat’s political playbook.