Greece’s Debt Burden Can and Must be Lightened Within the Euro
A proposal for breaking Greece’s vicious debt cycle.
Read more...Category Archives: Dubious statistics
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.”
Read more...Wolf Richter: Housing Bubble Means American Dream Withers at Record Pace
Despite the current housing “buying panic,” the soaring prices, and all the hoopla round them, there is a fly in the ointment: overall homeownership is plunging.
Read more...China’s Stock Market Falling Off a Cliff: Why, and Why Care?
What explains the turmoil in Chinese stock markets, and what does it mean for the rest of the world?
Read more...Greece Negotiations Already Starting to Look Wobbly
Silly me! I thought that given that the Greek government had prostrated itself and had complied with the creditor demand to pass legislation double-plus quickly or else, that the worst of the hurdles to getting the third bailout passed had been surmounted.
I should know better than that.
Read more...Sharp Pencils vs. Sharp Politics: The 2015 Social Security Trustees Report
Social Security does face long term demographics issues….as will any approach to making sure retirees have income.
Read more...Dan Davies: Greek Banks Were Bigger Beneficiaries of the 2010 Bailout Than French and German Banks
Even though French and German banks benefitted from the 2010 Greek bailout, Greek banks did even more so.
Read more...Why the Greek Government Rejects a Grexit
Why the Greek government and Greek citizens recognize that a Grexit is a terrible idea for them.
Read more...Some Pointers on How to Catch the Dubious Use of Statistics
A long standing pet peeve is how the use of figures has been fetishized in political discourse and in our society generally, to the point where many people too easily swayed by argument that invoke data (I discussed this phenomenon at length in the business context in a 2006 article for the Conference Board Review, […]
Read more...New Study Debunks Myth That Exorbitant CEO Pay Results from “Talent”
In the last month or so, I’ve seen some remarkably dubious studies flogged around what Lambert calls the Innertubes, all ringing changes on the same themes: outsized pay for those at the top is a reflection of a state of nature. Fortunately, a new study from Lawrence Mishel and Alyssa Davis of the Economic Policy Institute has done the heavy lifting of shredding new, creative defenses of out-of-control CEO pay.
Read more...Tom Engelhardt: Armed Violence in the Homeland
If you worry about safety, stop fretting about terrorists and focus on the nasty intersection of rising social stress and widespread gun ownership.
Read more...Are Locavores a Threat to Feeding the Planet Efficiently?
As local food has grown, so have the number of critics who claim that locavores have a dilemma. Are they right?
Read more...Naomi Oreskes: The Hoax of Climate Change Denial
How climate change denialists have opened up a new front in their attacks on climate science.
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