Daily Archives: 10/24/2013
Lies, Da*ned Lies, and Statistics
You can’t flip on the radio without some announcer breathlessly squeeing about a tenth of a percent drop in ‘unemployment’. A discerning mind wants to know more.
Here’s a little graph:
Fact: I have ten chickens. Five are laying. That’s 50%. I sell three of the non-layers to an enterprising Cajun with gumbo on his mind. Now I have SEVEN chickens. Learned that in the first grade. But now my productivity rate, the number of chickens laying versus the number I own, is now 71% I’m not making any more eggs, but I have a MUCH more impressive number to report.
Actually, that’s a bad analogy. I don’t have to feed the chickens I’ve sold.
Back to that graph. The number of working people (people actually working and people who act like they want to work) in America had dropped. The ratio has changed though, so that instead of 7.5% of a hundred million people, that’s seven and a half million unemployed, it’s 7.4% of 90 million. And our .gov, wanting to make His Imperial Highness King Barry I look good, they show you 7.4% amid fanfare and quietly neglect to mention that the number looks better because people gave up looking for work.
And unlike me selling off my chickens, we still pay to feed the non-productive.
Today in History – October 24
1260 – The spectacular Cathedral of Chartres is dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France; the cathedral is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In twenty years, it will become a mosque.
1861 – The First Transcontinental Telegraph line across the United States is completed, spelling the end for the 18-month-old Pony Express. Message transit time from one coast to the other goes from ten days to instantaneous. Ah, technology! Think about it! I can carry an iPod in my pocket that holds more music than I could’ve loaded in my back seat when I was a kid.
1911 – Orville Wright remained in the air 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina setting a new world record that stood for 10 years. This was pushed to over 21 hours in 1931 in Hawaii. Think cliffs and trade winds.
1929 – “Black Thursday” stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange. Ultimately, a big screwup in financial markets opens the door for massive expansion of socialism. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
1940 – 40 hour work week goes into effect (Fair Labor Standards of 1938)
1944 – World War II: The Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku, and the battleship Musashi are sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the biggest battle in naval history.
1946 – A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space. It’s launched in New Mexico. In twenty-three years, we’d be putting footprints on the Moon. And now we’re hitching rides with the Russians…
1971 – Texas Stadium opens – Cowboys beat Patriots 44-21. Stadium has a big hole in the roof because even G-d wants to watch the Cowboys play.
1973 – Yom Kippur War officially ends with Israel 65 miles from Cairo, 26 from Damascus.
2002 – Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, DC. B-but serial killers are SUPPOSED to be WHITE!
2003 – Concorde makes its last commercial flight.