Economic data and statistics are used to show the rise of China and the fall of America. It makes sense to do so. It immediately shows that one economy is clearly in the ascendency. Economics matter. It is a fact that economic structures determine political factors. It is also a fact that an economy and political structures exist because people exist.
However, between 2021 and 2022, life expectancy in the U.S. declined from 77.0 to 76.1 years and the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reports that this is the lowest level since 1996; for 2022, it increased to 79.05 years. In 2021, life expectancy for males was 73.2 years and for females 79.9 years, and by 2022, male life expectancy reached 73.9 and for females 79.5.
Source: Americans Are Dying and Dying … and Dying – CounterPunch.org
Scott Morrison enters the final parliamentary sitting week of the year facing fresh questions about the Coalition’s record of administering grants to government electorates. New analysis has found, since 2013, the bulk of government grant money has gone to government-held seats. The analysis says $3.9bn has been allocated under seven federal programs since the Coalition came to power, and $2.8bn, or 71% of the total taxpayer-funded pool, has gone to projects in government electorates.
The Liberal Government has a new tactic in the effort to reopen our country — convincing the public that COVID-19 deaths aren’t a big deal, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson. NEW SOUTH WALES PREMIER Gladys Berejiklian has mastered the challenging technique of announcing COVID-19 case numbers and deaths in a manner so upbeat it verges on jollity.
The lifestyles of around three average Americans will create enough planet-heating emissions to kill one person, and the emissions from a single coal-fired power plant are likely to result in more than 900 deaths, according to the first analysis to calculate the mortal cost of carbon emissions.
Professor Mary-Louise McLaws, an infectious diseases expert at the University of New South Wales and member of the WHO’s COVID-19 team, said a Guardian analysis of data showed India had fewer cases per capita than either the United States or the United Kingdom during their COVID-19 peaks. She said the data suggested the ban for India was likely an “act out of fear” and said it should be reversed “to ensure there is no misconception the ban is in any way racist”. While other countries have suffered horrific virus surges, Australia’s response hasn’t been to put up an impenetrable wall. Here’s a quick look at what we’ve done instead.
Source: India travel ban: Australia hasn’t banned flights from any other country
Some simple checks can help separate an honest statistic from a falsehood
Without learning to think statistically, we’ll never know when people are bending the truth | Paul Goodwin | Opinion | The Guardian
Adding to the mountain of statistical evidence showing the severity of U.S. inequality, an analysis published Friday found that the top one percent of Americans gained $21 trillion in wealth since 1989 while the bottom 50 percent lost $900 billion.
It’s amazing just how the wealthy can argue about poverty wow $1.60 a day to $7 in 8 years is this really the destruction of poverty? Who is taking part in this conversation? They ought to see what Australia has acheived over the past 200 years to improve the lives of the first Australians who colonisers said said weren’t here until Mabo This is the reverse of the Monty Python skit on who was brought up the poorest.(ODT)
But one thing seems clear — it was decolonisation that ultimately made it possible for poor countries to start catching up. Free from the crushing burden of producing resources and crops for their colonial masters, many of these countries were able to pursue their own destinies and to experiment with economic policies until they found a mix that worked. The triumph of decolonisation is a story that even Hickel should be able to feel happy about.
Bill Gates is right about poverty, the world really is getting richer
How we measure and talk about unemployment matters. Yet many politicians, pundits and the public remain fixated on pure data, measured by a near 60-year-old International Labour Organisation standard – if you work for at least “one hour” a week you are “employed”.. Yet the idea that unemployment is 5 per cent and employment is equal to one hour’s work is laughable. Real fake news.
Any new definition of employment must be based on the ability of a citizen and her or his dependants to earn a “living wage”, not some outdated “minimum wage”. Rather, it should be a version of our nation’s famous 1907 Harvester judgment, that a “fair and reasonable” wage must take into account the “normal needs of the average employee regarded as a human being living in a civilised community”, crafted for this precariat age.
Our job statistics are broken. It’s time to #changethestats.
Just listen to Morrison Lie (ODT)
via The one-hour week and other damned lies in our job statistics
A post-statistical society is a potentially frightening proposition, not because it would lack any forms of truth or expertise altogether, but because it would drastically privatise them. Statistics are one of many pillars of liberalism, indeed of Enlightenment. The experts who produce and use them have become painted as arrogant and oblivious to the emotional and local dimensions of politics. No doubt there are ways in which data collection could be adapted to reflect lived experiences better. But the battle that will need to be waged in the long term is not between an elite-led politics of facts versus a populist politics of feeling. It is between those still committed to public knowledge and public argument and those who profit from the ongoing disintegration of those things.
“More often than not the questions are framed in a way that’s related to being repressive towards immigrants. It’s worth remembering that numbers have to be interpreted, and it’s also about what kind of political interest there are in using the stats, how those stats are read. Stats are in themselves neutral, they have to be interpreted,” he emphasizes.
“If you really want to deepen understanding in this area you have to consider what the stats are and also what they’re going to be used for. Are they going to be used to better locate people without residence papers, for example? To track down migrants and their kids? Or are they going to be used to improve how the police act, and to create a less discriminatory police? It’s very complicated, and more often than not the discussion in the area in Sweden is too simplistic,” he concludes.
via Why Sweden doesn’t keep stats on ethnicity and crime – The Local
Correcting Bolt’s BS is a full time task because there is so much of it (ODT)
Asylum applications in 2016 dropped to about 29,000.
Sweden used to grant permanent residence permits to individuals granted asylum. The legislative changes in mid 2016 began restricting residence authorization by granting temporary permits and putting more requirements in place for permanent permits.
What about claims linking new arrivals and crime?
“In general, crime statistics have gone down the last (few) years, and no there is no evidence to suggest that new waves of immigration has lead to increased crime,” Selin said.
Generally, there’s a certain over-representation of people with immigrant background in crime statistics, but that tends to be closely related to high levels of unemployment, poverty, exclusion, low language and other skills, Selin said. “Swedes with these characteristics are also overrepresented in crime statistics,” he said.
If we look specifically at sex offences, which the Fox News segment highlighted, there were 18,100 sex offenses reported to the police in 2015, down 11 percent from 2014, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.
via What the statistics say about Sweden, immigration and crime | PolitiFact
The 17-year-old has already been charged with resisting arrest, assaulting police, riotous behaviour and other assault related offences, she said.
How to raise the Stats a lesson in potential bias.
Here we have 3 plus plus charges laid against one boy how many more will be laid depends on the DPP Then there’s charges against the other two? The number could be as many as 20+.One thing is certain it raises the the question of biased crime rates in Tarneit for one, profiling another and even more their reality given the charges haven’t been proved but have been recorded. It then becomes so easy to skew the stats for the sake of politics if these lads were Sudanese because 20+ charges are recorded and added to a small base. If recidivists even more so and that’s political fodder for the likes of Matthew Guy and now Federal politicians like Turnbull Dutton and Hunt, In 2018 we will see the political fearmongering grow, Old Dog Thought)
via Three teens arrested in Tarneit after ‘they spat at and threatened’ police
When formulating our defence against terrorism, it is important to understand the motives of those who encourage such violence. The immediate aim is to cause fear. Despite you being much more likely to die at the hands of your partner, we have people like Pauline Hanson, Cory Bernardi, George Christensen and Sonia Kruger telling us…
“There were three gradations of inveracity – there were lies, there were damned lies, and there were statistics” (Arthur Balfour, 1892) You may have noticed that Abbott and other members of the front bench regularly throw around numbers and statistics to back up what they’re saying. Numbers and statistics are quantifiable, so when they are used, they…
Source: Abbott: Master of lies, damned lies and statistics – » The Australian Independent Media Network
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