Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

I believe Mark Twain wrote that, among many other words of wisdom which are largely ignored. Here are others:

“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”

"In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards."

Great wisdom in these, but we have ignored at our peril.

Back to "Lies, damn lies, and statistics...." A few articles in today's paper spells these out. First, and the Lamestream Media has completely ignored this stuff, unemployment figures for the last month were "down" to 8.3%. Well, it's "down" to that figure if we no longer include 1.2 million people who are out of work, but are no longer looking for work, in the final statistics. Yep, 1.2 million unemployed people who have given up, for one reason or another, who are counted as "unemployed." I don't need to say more.

The Congressional Budget Office, which we often hear is "nonpartisan" (but I don't believe that for an instant), has issued a report predicting the $1.1 trillion deficit can be pared down to "a measly $269 billion by 2015." (Yep, "measly" reminds me of Everett Dirksen's statement back in the '60s, "A few million here and a few million there and pretty soon we're talking real money.") Well, to "pare down" the deficit takes several leaps that defy logic. First, the CBO says tax increases on the wealthiest of us are necessary and assumes they will happen. Of course, that means "the wealthiest of us" (paying their "fair share!") won't have money to invest. That translates to fewer jobs. Fewer jobs results in fewer taxes being collected. Oops....! Second, the CBO assumes Congress will have the honesty, courage, will to cut more than $2 billion in discretionary spending. Does anyone outside of the CBO believe for even an instant that will happen? Nobody I know....

Then some guy, OK the president of the "Electric Drive Transportation Association" claims there are a lot of electric cars that we can afford, that these cars cost less than $30,000. That's about the average cost of gasoline-powered cars. First, I don't think I believe that, given this guy isn't exactly an independent source. Second, he never mentions the federal gov't money given to help consumers buy those cars. Doesn't that money have to come from somewhere? Yep, from you and me. Yeah, a lot of electric cars cost as little as some gas cars, but that's not the complete story is it? While Big Oil continues to pay billions of dollars, yes billions of dollars, in taxes, the alternate sources of energy (which haven't worked, have they?) continue to not only pay more taxes, but also get huge government subsidies--that's fancy talk for robbing you to pay them for technology that doesn't work.

BTW, is anyone really surprised at "pay-to-play" in Wayne County government? I think we might really be surprised if we uncovered some level of government where this wasn't the case.