The Catholic Message Board

Greetings;

I think prices tend to be higher in AK as well.

The states with the highest taxes on alcohol have the highest average.

But this just goes to show how useless the "average" is as a statistic. The total amount of money I have spent on alcohol in the last 15 years is $0. As I used to tell my students in the Statistics classes I taught, if you put your head in the refrigerator and your feet in the oven, you will have an AVERAGE body temperature of about 98.6.

This is why the variance and the standard deviation are much better ways of looking at the behavior of a population. I'm betting that for each if those states, those averages have a standard deviation of about $500

Don't let it be said I didn't contribute my part.

Perish the thought.

Greetings:

Boston must be a fun town.

bye

I am happy to report that I am in complete agreement with Doom. I often say that no person should graduate from college without successfully completing Econ 101, Econ 102, and Stat 101.

In addition to what Doom said, I often point out that the most important step in descriptive statistics is to define the population. A pertinent example is the recent claim that 97% of scientists agree that there is global warming. I read a report by one who researched that statement. A more accurate statement would have been that 97% of all scientists surveyed who specialized in global warming and who were published in periodicals that supported the concept of global warming (and which excluded all other disciplines, such as biology and geology and history, from the survey) agreed that there is global warming.

Highlander wrote: ↑Sun Jan 11, 2026 10:21 pm A more accurate statement would have been that 97% of all scientists surveyed who specialized in global warming and who were published in periodicals that supported the concept of global warming (and which excluded all other disciplines, such as biology and geology and history, from the survey) agreed that there is global warming.

That's an awful lot to put on a bumper sticker. Mine says "Drill here! Drill now!"

Economics classes? Pfft! I was buried in American and British literature. Plus, literature in Spanish. Not Spanish literature, literature in Spanish.

I had to take a stat class in college, but admittedly, the longer I'm out of school (50 Years) the more I forget.

So many discussions I hear, directly and in the media, reveal an absolute ignorance of economics and statistics. One result is that the discussion is, in effect, meaningless but seems to hold major importance to the ignorant party.

In addition to Doom's post, where a population's characteristic is asserted to be best defined by the mean, but the mode and/or median would be a more accurate characteristic, the lack of a specific definition of the population results in quite incorrect conclusions.

In the area of personal economics, I have repeatedly heard, from sources such as Niall Ferguson, that much of the West has no concept of interest charged on debt. Leading to enormous consumer and student debt, serviced largely by those who eventually pay their bills. Or who pay their taxes, collected and redistributed by the State. In case of student debt, the Biden administration forgave over $175 billion in federal student loan debt held by more than 5 million borrowers.

Likewise, the various levels of government, in spite of States' constitutional and legal bans on operating in the red, have evolved processes to ignore those restrictions. Leading to the enormous public debt held by some States. California, for example has an official state public debt of about $165 billion with long-term obligations for pensions and retiree benefits of about $175 billion and some tens of billions more in retiree health benefits. In the Federal realm, Social Security is the herd of elephants in the room.

Basic macro and personal economics address the issue of debt servicing and the consequences of failing to service debt. And, in general both individuals and governments are ignorant of the consequences. Thus Econ 101 and 102.

BION, The person that I learned the most about Econ 101 from, was Rush Limbaugh. He could make an otherwise complex issue sound easy to follow. I miss him and his insights.

Highlander wrote: ↑Sun Jan 11, 2026 10:21 pm I am happy to report that I am in complete agreement with Doom.

In the Good Old Days, that was a bannable offense.

Or the exception which proves the rule.

If the average NY'er spends $805, and I spend $0, that means that there may be somebody out there who spends $1610.

Assuming a normal distribution and without sufficient data and making all sorts of assumptions, two of which are that you were the only person who spends nothing and only one person spends $1610, I'm guesstimating that the range of spending for all NYrs is between $0-$1610. Not very useful, eh?

OTOH, given the information you provided, one person may have spend $2415. And another $3220. And one may have been paid $805.

But if you provide us what each of 20 randomly selected NYrs spends, we might get somewhere. That exercise, however, leads us into the minefield of random selection.

I actually find this fun.

Highlander wrote: ↑Sun Jan 11, 2026 10:21 pm I am happy to report that I am in complete agreement with Doom. I often say that no person should graduate from college without successfully completing Econ 101, Econ 102, and Stat 101.

In addition to what Doom said, I often point out that the most important step in descriptive statistics is to define the population. A pertinent example is the recent claim that 97% of scientists agree that there is global warming. I read a report by one who researched that statement. A more accurate statement would have been that 97% of all scientists surveyed who specialized in global warming and who were published in periodicals that supported the concept of global warming (and which excluded all other disciplines, such as biology and geology and history, from the survey) agreed that there is global warming.

In regard to global warming, another factor is that scientific journals refuse to publish papers about climate science that do not agree with the standard theory. It is easy to arrive at a consensus when dissenters are silenced.

And there is also the fact that there is massive federal funding of science, especially climate science, and it is proverbial that "The one who pays the piper calls the tune.", when the government is funding your research, you reach the conclusions the government wants, or you lose your grant. Government funding of research is inherently corrupting.

I'm agreeing even more.

I once sat in a room where the results of a series of experiments were being discussed. They were discussed preparatory to presenting them to the government agency which had funded the research. The results were lass than dismal. Literally, repeat, literally, a coin toss was a better predictor of detecting a phenomenon than by using the experimental equipment. In addition, the experimenters saw no way forward to modifying equipment to improve the results.

The experiment director volunteered to deliver the bad news to the funding agency. At that point, a senior scientist, heretofore silent, spoke. He stated that the dismal results would not be released in their current form as they might be premature. He also stated that the results would be crafted in a more favorable light. The goal of briefing the funding agency would be to solicit more funding in light of these promising results.

My last shred of naive belief in the integrity of science ended in that meeting. There were other examples. There. science, as practiced, was about money, prestige, keeping scientists and engineers employed, and ensuring bonuses for exceptional research.

There were a number of scientists who did solid research. Typically, when things went well, they were removed and someone else stepped in. One such, just before completing a multi-year major project, was removed and placed in charge of purchasing and inventorying laboratory property. I asked how he could tolerate his treatment. He said that trying to perform science in that laboratory was far more demeaning than being an equipment manager. He retired at the earliest opportunity.

anawim wrote: ↑Mon Jan 12, 2026 1:50 pm BION, The person that I learned the most about Econ 101 from, was Rush Limbaugh. He could make an otherwise complex issue sound easy to follow. I miss him and his insights.

absolutely!

Highlander wrote: ↑Thu Jan 15, 2026 9:01 pm I once sat in a room where the results of a series of experiments were being discussed. . .

Holy cow!

I read this twice to make sure I got the whole thing. I could have read it 4-5 more times. I mean, it wasn't exactly Moby Dick. Plus, it was interesting.

Anyway, this confirms my worst suspicions of what has become of science. Just what do you do for a living, anyway?

I'm retired.

I replied with a massive, magnificent post which disappeared into the ether. I'm not gonna redo it.

I worked in a logistics planning office supporting several laboratories. Generally in the space and energy worlds. Our job was to address logistics issues in the design and conduct of experiments so that the experiment structure itself would succeed. For example, we might suggest obtaining a spare of a unique part with a lead time to produce of months. Or we might advocate for formalization of maintenance procedures for a really, really big and really, really complex piece of unique equipment to be used in experiments. To be effective, we often had to get into the nitty-gritty of the science itself and to do whatever it took to be accepted onto an experiment team. Based upon a prior life directing interceptor fighter aircraft, on one experiment I sat monitoring FAA radar and stopping and starting the experiment as commercial aircraft arrived and departed from a nearby airport.

Since logistics always costs money, the senior scientists usually dismissed or slow-rolled our input. The higher the level in the scientific bureaucracy, the more the pushback. We learned to embed ourselves with the working level and avoid notice by the scientific bureaucracy.

I have many stories.