It’s time to ‘blog again and after my comments a few weeks ago about Top Gear having short interviews with meaningless celebrities; their final three episodes of the series saw them interview: Andy Garcia, Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz and Jeff Goldblum – so I must now eat my words as BBC wonders why they let Michael Parkinson and Jonathan Ross leave.
Anyway, back on to the current ‘blog, there’s no need to bring the past out all over again – as O J Simpson often says.
It can be said that there are: true lies, damn lies and… the statements which Jeffery Archer used to claim were correct (I don’t even have to put the word “allegedly”, as he’s a convicted perjurer). Aside from that, statistics are often be grouped in with the contents of the previous sentence; and they are often said to be misleading - this is probably because 10 out of every 9 statistics are incorrect.
Ultimately, I think a good statistic can often give food for thought, yet these are often too simplified, there is often very little in the reported media that really drills down into greater detail. When he was Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott always used to advise that people take statistics with a pinch of salt – although to be fair, John Prescott use to advised that everything be taken with a pinch of salt. Moreover, in terms of statistics, it’s very important to remember that one can easily drown in a swimming pool which has an average depth of half a metre.
Whilst reading a report about California’s current fiscal emergency, the BBC News Website referred to California’s economy as being the “8th largest in the world”, a statistic which is totally meaningless – you can’t create an economic area and slot it into another table and claim it to be an acceptable thing to do, did this table consider the combined economy of the EU? What about the combined economy of the NAFTA members? Has anyone considered the combined economy of the USA and Kenya? It’s a bit like me saying that the £8 note is the fourth highest monetary denomination in the UK (after the £50, £20 and £10 notes) this is a obviously a load of rubbish – as I haven’t considered the £13.80 note.
To some degree, I of course sympathise, with the people of California during their economic struggle; who would have thought that a Hollywood actor and former bodybuilder with no Political experience whatsoever would struggle to lead his state through an economic downturn? At current, he’s making massive cuts to the public sector and cancelling contractual agreements – I suppose he can now legitimately be called the Terminator.
Obviously, economics can be very hard to understand, as can making money via financial services in an economic downturn. Having heard a bit about trading, I recently attempted to make a lot of money buying and selling on the markets – but unfortunately, no-one wanted to buy my fresh fruit and vegetables. I then tried to trade on the stock market, where I attempted to make a large amount of money by using a “short-selling” strategy – but regrettably, it was during the winter, so not many people wanted to buy shorts.
I think statistics links in well to finance as it is partly based around having a numeric competence. This week, a lot of the UK banks released their six month results for the first half of the year. Northern Rock was one such bank, and the “bad” portion of the bank, which consists of mortgages and unsecured loans, made a profit of £349.7m, meanwhile, the “good” portion of the bank, consisting of consumers’ deposits and newer loans, made a loss of £142.6m. With the “bad” bank making a profit and the “good” ban being at a loss; it is hardly a great surprise that people don’t fully understand the mechanics of the banking crisis – after all, the bad/good bank’s profit/loss situation at Northern Rock is akin to Sir Edmund Hillary climbing up Everest and then being unable to walk up his staircase when he returned home.
So, having now written over 73.728% of this ‘blog I should head back to the irrelevant statistics, particularly with respect to percentages. The phrase “I gave 110%” is increasingly popular, and Gordon Brown was once heavily criticised for saying he “was 101% behind Tony Blair”, even though he was behind him to a greater level than his physical capabilities – it’s like complaining that Jesus walked on water, instead of running on lemonade.
I think my main dislike regarding statistics stems from the roundness of the numbers; the manner in which percentages are rounded to the nearest 10% shows a lack of reliability. There is an advert on television about road safety that advises that “if you hit a child a 30 [miles per hour], there’s a 80% chance they will live; if you hit them at 40 [miles per hour], there’s a 80% they will die.” There statements are not wholly accurate (or if you like, not 100% accurate) – because no matter what speed you hit the young child at, they will die eventually.
That rounds up all I have to say about statistics, and it may be a while until I ‘blog again; as I am soon to move to the big city and start working full time… I’m a little bit nervous about living in a big city centre… but I should be fine… apparently 90% of people enjoy it…
