Building a Historical Index of Happiness Using Google Books
Is there merit in trying to measure happiness hundreds of years ago versus now?
Read more...Category Archives: Dubious statistics
John Helmer: MH17 – Dutch Prepare Missile Attack on Moscow
The Dutch Government has decided to launch a missile attack on Moscow in October. By suppressing all evidence obtained from the bodies of victims of the crash of Malaysian Airlines MH17, officials of the Dutch Safety Board and associated Dutch military officers, police and prosecutors are preparing to release a report on the crash with a gaping hole in its veracity.
Read more...Perry Mehrling: What Does Repo Do? And Can We Do Without It?
Repo is the system that failed during the financial crisis, leading the Fed to ride to banks’ rescue. Is repo any safer now?
Read more...Household Labor, Caring Labor, Unpaid Labor
A discussion of the practical and policy implications of failing to measure household labor and production.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Americans’ Economic Outlook Plunges
The latest poll of Americans’ economic outlook shows most expect things to get worse…and the survey was before the market rout started last Friday.
Read more...How Medical “Misbranding” Puts Patients at Risk
How the anodyne term “misbranding” covers conduct which can, and too often does, lead to higher patient death rates.
Read more...The ALEC Rankings: Does Smaller Government Mean Higher Growth?
Demonstrating why Menzie Chinn stated, “The ALEC economic outlook ranking is, in my assessment, a manifestation of faith based economics.”
Read more...The GM Labeling Law to End All Labeling Laws
Campaigners for the Orwellianly-named “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015” falsely demonize those who want GM labeling as anti-science.
Read more...Greek Debt Sustainability: The Devil is in the Tails
The debate over Greek debt sustainability is muddied by the fact that different analysts use different definitions. But once you use realistic assumptions, as in “tails risks” are actually pretty likely, Greek debt is obviously not “sustainable”.
Read more...Wolf Richter: China’s Hard Landing Suddenly Gets a Lot Rougher
Despite the 7% GDP growth published and hotly defended by the Chinese government, it is increasingly clear that the country is beset with a host of immense problems, after a debt-fueled binge of overbuilding and over-stimulating.
Read more...Bill Black: Republican Candidates Agree that the System is Rigged for the Rich
The Republican candidates for President all made shameless appeals for even more plutocracy, in particular preferential treatment for the rich.
Read more...Greece’s Debt Burden Can and Must be Lightened Within the Euro
A proposal for breaking Greece’s vicious debt cycle.
Read more...Dealing With Mass Killings in America: Funding Our Children, Not Our Wars
As mass killings become more common in the US, law enforcement agents fixate on and unduly publicize cases with jihadist links. As this post describes, that serves as an excuse for even more intensive surveillance.
Yet as Mark Ames described in one of the first works on these rampages, in his book “Going Postal,” there were no obvious similarities among the perps. They weren’t all, or even often, isolated losers. They did not typically come from broken homes. They were generally of above average intelligence. Aside from being disproportionately male, the other common thread was that they had been bullied.
If Ames’ observations still hold true, the lack of distinctive demographic or behavioral predictors of those who go on rampages means that heightened surveillance is at best another form of security theater, and at worst an excuse for Stasi-like dossier-gethering.
Read more...The Ideology of the S&P Threat to Downgrade Brazil to Junk
Why you should look hard at the rationales and motives of ratings agencies like S&P in giving sovereign debt downgrades.
Read more...Lies, Damned Lies, and Greek Statistics
A detailed account of the long and tortured history of budget fakery in Greece and how it is has been aggressively defended by successive Greek governments. A tidbit from the post: one section is labeled “When revising wrong statistics is treason.”
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