It's Very Easy To Tell Big Lies With Statistics

IBD Editorials ^ | November 7, 2011 | The great THOMAS SOWELL

[Kaslin]

One of the things that has struck me, when I have gone on luxury cruise ships, is that most of the passengers look like they are older than the captain — and luxury cruise ships don't have juveniles as captains.

The reason for the elderly clientele is fairly simple: Most people don't reach the point when they can afford to travel on luxury cruise ships until they have worked their way up the income ladder over a long period of years.

The relationship between age and income is not hard to understand. It usually takes years to acquire the skills and experience that high-paying jobs require, or to build up a clientele for those in business or the professions.

But those in the media and in politics who are currently up in arms, denouncing income inequalities, seldom mention age as a factor in those inequalities.

The shrill rhetoric about differences in income proceeds as if they are talking about income inequalities between different classes of people.

It would be hard to get the public all worked up over the fact that young people just starting out in their careers are not making nearly as much money as their parents or grandparents make.

Differences in wealth between the young and the old are even greater than differences in income.

Households headed by someone 65 years old and older have more than 15 times as much wealth as households headed by someone under 35 years of age.

[ptsal]

bttt

[ptsal]

Sowell Food

[MrEdd]

I have a book on lying with statistics that was written in the twenties.

I don’t remember all the cute quips from the opening section, but I do remember that practically every other item was “always use averages, never ever let yourself be forced to use the mean”.

And really, you can get pretty far with just that.

[A_perfect_lady]

I'm embarrassed to admit I never thought of this. I should have: when my mom married my step-dad in 1976, we were poor as church mice. One income at GM supporting a wife and three kids, living in a trailor parked on a patch of land while my step-dad struggled to build a house in his spare time. Wearing hand-me-down clothes, never able to do or buy anything.

30 years later, they're retired to a log cabin in the UP, got Harleys and various toys, living comfortably... their income was plenty once we kids grew up and left home, and they sold the house for a nice little sum and moved somewhere cheaper. Well, duh. (smacks self on head)

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

Here’s a conlcusion from an interesting statistic:

Human beings are becoming immortal!

What is the underlying “proof”. Although the human species has existed for over 150,000 years, statisically speaking, over 80% of all humans who have ever lived are still living.