"But one prominent critic, John Williams, an economist and publisher of the research site Shadowstats.com, said that when you take into account the large number of people who have been so discouraged by job market woes that they have not been actively looking for work for more than a year, the unemployment rate is actually as high as 17.5%
Williams explains that prior to 1994, all people who were "discouraged workers" were counted in the unemployment survey. But that's no longer the case. So he believes his number is more of an apples-to-apples comparison to some of the numbers cited about the peak level of unemployment during the Great Depression, which was around 25%.
What's more, Williams believes that this and other tweaks to the employment calculations over the past few decades were designed to give a more optimistic view of the economy.
"I think it's true that changes have made to make numbers look better. If you don't think the system is political, you don't know the system." "
Think about this for a moment. 17.5% means that ~ every 1 out of 5 is out of work. Look around you. Does that even seem possible. That number is like the numbers proclaiming that there are 3 million homeless in the US and that men on average have more sexual partners than women (by a ratio of ~7 to 4). Its complete bullshit and if people thought about it for just a few minutes, they would realize it.
I'm pretty sure you can explain the difference in averages between men & women's sex partners by a very large variance. E.g. village bicycles & nuns vs regular man-slut Joe six-pack.
Let us examine the Village of Virtuous Women, where there are 100 men and 100 women. 99 wives are faithful to their husbands. All the men are unfaithful with the 100th wife (except, of course, her husband -- who I really feel for).
Average number of partners per man: (2 + 2 + 2 + ... + 1) / 100 = 1.99
Average number of partners per woman: (1 + 1 + 1... + 100) / 100 = 1.99
You can also justify this with "Sum over a gender of number of sexual partners equals the sum over the gender of sexual partnerships, and if we only consider heterosexual partnerships, then this must be symmetric for both genders. Thus, since number of people in both genders is approximately equal, average number of sexual partners must be approximately equal."
So what actually causes the disparity? It has to be either a) untruthfulness or b) unsampled outliers. For example, if in the Village of Faithful Women the unfaithful wife got missed in your phone survey, you'd blow the results completely now wouldn't you.
But in the instant case, it is highly likely that the answer is in fact untruthfulness (both overreporting and underreporting).
Not quite. A ratio of 7 to 4 means that the number of heterosexual males is 7/4 times the number of heterosexual females. Since the ratio of men to women in the US is ~50-50 (as well as in most countries), If that statistic is correct, at least 42% of all men are homosexual. A laughable claim. Whenever you read statistics, _always_ take them with a grain of salt and run them through a common sense analyzer.
Comments
from:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/09/markets/thebuzz/index.htm?po...
"But one prominent critic, John Williams, an economist and publisher of the research site Shadowstats.com, said that when you take into account the large number of people who have been so discouraged by job market woes that they have not been actively looking for work for more than a year, the unemployment rate is actually as high as 17.5%
Williams explains that prior to 1994, all people who were "discouraged workers" were counted in the unemployment survey. But that's no longer the case. So he believes his number is more of an apples-to-apples comparison to some of the numbers cited about the peak level of unemployment during the Great Depression, which was around 25%.
What's more, Williams believes that this and other tweaks to the employment calculations over the past few decades were designed to give a more optimistic view of the economy.
"I think it's true that changes have made to make numbers look better. If you don't think the system is political, you don't know the system." "
Think about this for a moment. 17.5% means that ~ every 1 out of 5 is out of work. Look around you. Does that even seem possible. That number is like the numbers proclaiming that there are 3 million homeless in the US and that men on average have more sexual partners than women (by a ratio of ~7 to 4). Its complete bullshit and if people thought about it for just a few minutes, they would realize it.
I'm pretty sure you can explain the difference in averages between men & women's sex partners by a very large variance. E.g. village bicycles & nuns vs regular man-slut Joe six-pack.
That wouldn't do it by itself, actually.
Let us examine the Village of Virtuous Women, where there are 100 men and 100 women. 99 wives are faithful to their husbands. All the men are unfaithful with the 100th wife (except, of course, her husband -- who I really feel for).
Average number of partners per man: (2 + 2 + 2 + ... + 1) / 100 = 1.99
Average number of partners per woman: (1 + 1 + 1... + 100) / 100 = 1.99
You can also justify this with "Sum over a gender of number of sexual partners equals the sum over the gender of sexual partnerships, and if we only consider heterosexual partnerships, then this must be symmetric for both genders. Thus, since number of people in both genders is approximately equal, average number of sexual partners must be approximately equal."
So what actually causes the disparity? It has to be either a) untruthfulness or b) unsampled outliers. For example, if in the Village of Faithful Women the unfaithful wife got missed in your phone survey, you'd blow the results completely now wouldn't you.
But in the instant case, it is highly likely that the answer is in fact untruthfulness (both overreporting and underreporting).
Not quite. A ratio of 7 to 4 means that the number of heterosexual males is 7/4 times the number of heterosexual females. Since the ratio of men to women in the US is ~50-50 (as well as in most countries), If that statistic is correct, at least 42% of all men are homosexual. A laughable claim. Whenever you read statistics, _always_ take them with a grain of salt and run them through a common sense analyzer.