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User Info	Oh Do Come On Friday; entered at 2007-12-02 13:58:29
Bozonian Posts: 19023 Registered: 2007-09-01 Saratoga Springs, New York	You guys put a lot of faith in the "numbers" being reported. I think they are manipulated pretty heavily. As I recall, BIG LOTs or some other company only made their numbers by selling off property. That's a bad sign. There are other examples too of this kind of thing which make "the numbers" an inaccurate measure. There is an old, or maybe new maxim, whenever you measure something that has a vested interest, people will game the number. In other words, whatever you are using as the item being measured, people will do whatever it takes to raise that number. In my industry, computer programming, some companies tried to measure productivity by "lines of code" so something like: *TotalValue = DailyValue 10** would become: TotalValue = DailyValue * 10 See. I get 5 units of credit just by "gaming" the number. There is also the factor that, whenever there is a grey area, the issue will be decided in the favor of the statistic publisher. For example, the government tried to make the CPI number more accurate by dampening numbers that fluctuated too much. What did they choose to do? They decided to remove food, energy and housing from the CPI. Why? Because it helped them keep the CPI low which is to the publisher's (the U.S. government) benefit. What they should have done is run a 12 month moving average for the volatile items. I think you have to look beyond the numbers. I like Karl's picture of the shopping mall being empty. That's a reality you can trust, though it hasn't been assigned a quantity yet, 0 seems like a good choice. Wall street is hypnotized by the numbers (which are almost all measured with inflated dollars. GDP grew 8% but the dollar lost 12% against other currencies this year, DX index). Realize these are just numbers. Understand who is publishing them and adjust them accordingly. Last modified: 2007-12-02 14:02:18 by bozonian 2007-12-02 13:58:29