Lying with statistics

This was also posted on ConyersBlog on 7/27/06 @ 3:58 PM. The context was a response to a post about the minimum wage increase. I used the term flip flop to point out a hypocrisy.

More about Ohio and the Minimum Wage. The organization I refer to here has also made essentially the same arguements about the changes to the national minimum wage, which the Republicans have flip flopped on for political gain. You may recall that I have commented on bogus use of statistics, per the quote widely attributed to Mark Twain, that "There are lies, damn lies and Statistics”. Here is an example of right wing use of statistics.

First, the issue is an increase of the Ohio minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.85, effective January 1, 2007 if the law gets passed. By my calculations with my trusty Windows calculator, that equals an increase of $1.70, or again by my Windows calculator, a 33% increase in the minimum wage. Multiplying a standard 40 hour week times 2080 hours, assuming 50 or 51 week's work, depending on if the employer gives the employee one to two week's vacation to a full-time employee. This comes out as a wage increase to this minimum wage earner of $3536.00 per year. Now, a right wing "research" organization called the "**Employment Policies Institute" uses some kind of statistical ruse (usually some kind of lumping or averaging study, which uses means or medians to shade the argument to the point under discussion). I did not have time to wade through the entire document, but this organization made a whole bunch of bogus conclusions.

Among the bogus conclusions:

1. The "average" family earning under $15,000 per year will see an "average income distribution" gain in their income of $63.00 with an income increase of $3536.00 per year. The "average" family, even though it is not stated, probably includes the elderly who do not work, the unemployed, the chronically underemployed, and some others I haven't figured out yet, which is intended to skew the results in the direction the authors of the "study" wished to take the reader, and the politicians who will vote on it. The "Average inccome gain" is listed as $1034.00, again skewing the results by lumping in part time and unemployed workers with full time workers.

2. The majority of the families involved with the increase of the minimum wage are not "poor". They mention a family income of $45,000 which is not, by definition of the poverty line as "poor". This ignores the size of the family, number of children in college or saving for college, the fact that some of the wage earners are children who are on summer break from high school or are working on stipends at college, which are limited to 10 hours per week. Again a lumping of a class into an "average" that fails to look at individuals and the impact on their personal situation. (Again, the "averages are skewed by lumping in disparate groups, this is the only way to come up with the conclusions of this study.)

There are other erroneous and misleading uses of statistics in this bogus study. My qualifications to evaluate this "study" are 6 courses in Statistics, 2 at the graduate level, and at least 4 and I think 6 courses in economics, 2 at the graduate level.

**Did'ya ever notice that Right Wing "Think Tanks" are always named some pretentious name like "Institute" or "Research Foundation" in their name, Cato Institute, etc. ad nauseum. This puts a veneer of intellectualism and respectability, such that the right wing pundits and blowhards like Rush, Glenn Beck and Hannity can say to the effect, "these guys are (you pick, scientists, economists, experts) and they have studied this for years and they are much smarter than I am, with the implied "well, if they are smarter than I am, then they must be a hell of a lot smarter than you are, and must be believed". I do not need to mention to you that a study that has a predetermined outcome is not a study, it is propaganda. The "study" is here, click on the Ohio study. Employment Policies Institute

An addition to my Conyers Post:

As an aside, our local morning drive time radio station, which puts right wing talkers on (Beck, Rush, Hannity, and a couple of locals) runs a talky moring show with a strong right leaning focus. This morning, a spokesman from the Employment Policies Institute, Mr. Mike Flint (not sure of spelling) spewed all of the same talking points. The minimum wage increase would cost jobs of the most vulnerable. The poor people, who generally pay no Federal Income tax would be better off with an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), than they would be with a raise. How can a gax break for someone who pays no tax be considered to benefit the person who gets no money back or who pays no Federal Income Tax anyway?

They brought up that only only 3.8 per cent of a class of female employees would benefit. They indicated that the poor should go to school to increase their "skills" the word "skills" was repeated 5 times (technically, one use of the word "skills" and 4 repeats.

The statistic of "total family income" was mentioned, and as I said above, this is a lumped statistic, that skews the result in the direction the authors of the bogus study wanted it to go.

Then they also said the majority of those families with minimum wage earners were not poor, again a conclusion that used averaging without looking at individual groups within the universe which they were averaging. It would be interesting to look at the raw statistics, whether the distribution was bimodal or trimodal, which I suspect. Multimodal distributions reflect lumping disparate populations into a single whole.

Then they said that the way out of poverty is to have a job with full time employment, but it did not matter what the wage was, just that their income would increase with more hours worked. That one deserves the proverbial, duh. This was linked to the fear mongering that if the minimum wage was raised, the loss of low skill and entry level jobs would dry up for those most in need of them.

Then they trotted out the old saw of "perspective". They actually said that poor people in America were much better off than poor people in other countries. This is no standard by which to measure poverty in America.

Let me ask the question: Would hotels and motels quit hiring house cleaners if the minimum wage increased: Would car washes and hospital house cleaners not continue to work? Thie answer is no. Would there be some minor impact on the economy and some marginal price increases for these services? Of course there will be. Will it equal a 100 per cent increase in the price of fuel that we all have to absorb? No.

The working poor have to buy gas as well.

Since perspective is a technique used to sell weak arguments, I will try to use it here to justify a strong argument. When I was a kid growing up in the 1950's and 1960's my first job as a box boy in a grocery store paid the minimum wage of $1.40 per hour. Candy bars cost a nickel. Gas cost about 27 cents per gallon. My minimum wage would buy 28 candy bars or nearly 6 gallons of gasoline. A minimum wage of the proposed $6.85 per hour will buy 12 candy bars at the current price of 55 cents, which our local stores and gas stations are charging. 28 vs 12, this is a big difference. That $6.85 will buy a little over 2 gallons of gas at the current price of $3.00. The $1.40 would buy a little over 5 gallons of gas in 1965 vs 2 gallons today. The current ,minimum wage of $5.15 will buy 1.7 gallons of gas.

The buying power of the minimum wage has dropped by well over half in the 31 years since my first job. The new Ohio minimum wage will buy 3 candy bars. Can't American business let their employees buy 3 more candy bars for their kids?

Finally, it was clear that this was a scripted conversation, and it is also clear that this is the official position of those groups who benefit by keeping the minimum wage where it is. They have a louder political voice than the working poor.

QuestionItNow Blogs

Delegitimizing Our Government

Crossposted at ConyersBlog.us

Our democracy always hangs in delicate balance between tyranny and freedom.

The constitution is and has been, since 1787, the guideline that has protected our freedom, and with few exceptions, those entrusted by our people and political system have worked diligently to protect this precious document and its protection of our citizens.

This is one of those exceptional periods where those in power in Washington and in our state capitals, have actively sought to weaken the protections and limitations on government power to the detriment of the freedom Americans, and indeed the rest of the world, hold dearly.

I have argued that the most precious right that Americans have is the right to vote. The ability to select those who will lead our nation, states, cities and towns is the ultimate power that controls the ability of our elected officials to do our bidding, not the other way around.

Since 2000, there have been significant challenges to the ability of our elections officials to count our votes accurately. There has been significant interference with the right of individuals to register and to cast their votes, and to have them counted accurately.

Since 2000, when the national scandal showing an inability to count votes accurately became apparent in Florida, and the inadequacy of punch card voting became abundantly apparent to America, and to the entire world. The reaction to that was a legislative move to eliminate punch card ballots, and to move toward a greater reliance on electronic voting, whose stated purpose was to improve the voting process, and ensure more accurate counting.

This move to electronic voting means has been fraught with problems. In many cases, the electronic voting machines have been proven to be hackable, which can cause undetected vote shifting to one candidate or another. The mantra now is to use voter verifiable paper trails with the machine. This is a step in the right direction and has been implemented in over 20 states, (by my recollection).

Testing and hacking attempts by computer security professionals have uncovered security flaws in new voting machines and systems. In some cases, so-called "back doors" have been found by security experts, and they have been acknowledged by the manufacturers, including at least one admission that the back doors were placed there intentionally.

All of these items have been extensively documented elsewhere, and I will not go into the details.

The point which must be made is that the failure to fix our systems of voter registration, access to voting places for all voters, the reduction of voter lines to a predictable and reasonable waiting time before entering the booth to cast your vote, and the accurate counting of votes risks delegitimizing our system of government.

It appears that the process of delegitimizing our voting process is now a strong trend, and it is accelerating.

The reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is a strong step in the right direction, but much more remains to be done.

Delegitimizing our government through the failure to count votes, and the failure to permit eligible voters their right to vote, the purging of eligible voters from the rolls, are all methods that are moving us to illegitimate government.

If we allow this to happen, the rest of our lives, and the lives of our progeny will be in tyranny, not freedom. We cannot let this happen.

If we allow ourselves to descend into tyranny, with its attendant loss of freedom, with an unchecked government creating "law" that permits government intrusion into every aspect of our lives, our privacy, our freedom of speech and association, our political freedom of choice between candidates and philosophy, what we do in our bedrooms, or what we tell our lawyers and doctors, or priests and clergy, or counselors, our phone and internet conversations will all be fair game for those who think they know better than you do what you should do and think.

If we give up our rights to select our leadership, then all of the above is inevitable. If we give up our rights, America has already lost the war on terror. The terror will be perpetrated by our government.

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Obscenity in Ann Arbor

I recently discovered a very interesting commentary by Dr. Fornbush at Bring It On!. In this writing he describes the purpose of "Bring It On!" by discussing how the movie "Deep Throat" led to a strong backlash from government censors. While the crackdown on graphic sex led directly to our current movie rating system, violence has become ever more pervasive and accepted in movies, with scant political criticism. It is as if violence has become the officially sanctioned substitute for sex. [more]

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of taking my family to the annual Ann Arbor Street Art Fair. It was a beautiful evening and we had a wonderful time.

However, one "gentleman" delivered a moment of darkness on an otherwise enjoyable evening. A so-called "right to life" fanatic was marching up and down the fair holding aloft a massive banner full of extremely disturbing images of aborted fetuses and dismembered baby body parts.

I have two young children, and I take my parental responsibilities seriously. Therefore, my first reaction was to confront this fanatic and inform him that there are several young children in the crowd. How dare he inflict trauma on these young people by forcing them to view such obscene images. I quickly decided against this course of action. Had I done so, there is little doubt my children would have seen the banner.

Fortunately, I saw him coming ahead of time and was able to alert my wife and distract my children by turning into the nearest artist's booth. The reaction of the crowd was interesting. A silence descended and an almost palpable chill followed this abomination.

I have also witnessed panel trucks displaying these obscene images driving around outside Michigan Stadium before U of M football games. On one of these festive occassions my five year old daughter was with me. Once again, she was able to avoid seeing this due to the crowd and her short stature. I am glad I was not carrying her on my shoulders at the time.

So, just what is considered obscenity in America today? Why do our political "leaders" go ballistic when Janet Jackson exposes her breast for a split second during a Super Bowl halftime show, while they allow grotesque and obscenely violent images to be displayed in front of children in the name of religious freedom and freedom of expression?

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Conservatism = Radicalism

The perverted version of what is now called Conservatism is a massive failure. A rampaging elephant trampling the crop of our freedom, which was fertilized with the blood of one million dead American Soldiers.

As usual by the Orwellian Newspeak Conservatives, Conservative no longer means Conservative. It means a Radical overturning of the established order. Read the first 20 pages of Paul Krugman's book, The Great Unraveling.

In "The Great Unraveling" Krugman quotes from Henry Kissinger's doctoral dissertation regarding revolutionary movements. Paraphrasing, a revolutionary movement sees the existing order as illegitimate, and must be overthrown by whatever means necessary. According to Kissinger, the Revolutionary has the power of his convictions, and sees all attempts to reason and preservation of the existing order as the only goal toward working toward.

In America, the existing order is Constitutional Government, protection of political freedoms, and the preservation of all the freedoms embodied in the Bill of Rights and the Civil War Amendments which extended the protection of the Bill of Rights to the states, in effect, nationalizing the Bill of Rights, and making it unconstitutional for states to override those protections. The existing order recognized the separation of Church and State. It recognized the Fifth and Sixth Amendment Rights to no Self Incrimination, and a Right to a speedy, fair trial by jury when charged with the violation of a law.

The existing order in America followed the Constitutional requirement that no Bill of Attainder be permitted. Yet, this Congress and this President passed a Bill of Attainder to torure a brain dead young woman.

A traditional Conservative did not accept the premise that all change was bad, but they did have a philosophy that sought to take a look at what changes were being forced on America due to changes in technology, political events in the world, and to limit both the speed of that change and its impact.

Traditional Conservatives in general wished to maintain the status quo regarding the means to accumulate wealth and political power, but they also had a strong preference to follow constitutional principles and to protect our freedoms. None of this is bad on its face.

The Perversion of what passes for Conservatism today seeks to, in a radical way, overturn all of the things conservatives of the 1950's and 1960's held dear. They seek the breakdown of Constitutional protections. They seek to tear down the wall between Church and State. They seek to overturn social progress, interfere with the most precious Right we have as Americans, the Right to Vote and to select our political and economic leadership. They seek to pervert the elections process to provide a permanent advantage to press their Radical Agenda.

Therefore, at this time in our History, Conservative is Radical. A Liberal who seeks to impose fiscal dicipline on our rampaging government, protect our freedom and liberties, to preserve the Constitution is now painted as rabble-rousers who are supporting a Radical Agenda.

Freedom is Slavery. Liberal is Radical, even though they espouse traditional conservative causes. Environmental protection is the support of Environmental Destruction. No Child is Left Behind is designed to Leave all Children behind and to destroy public education in America.

Today, Conservatism = Radicalism.

Prove me wrong. Bring it on!

Propaganda vs. Rights of Man

The Republicans under Karl Rove and Frank Luntz, their prime wordsmith and focus group guru, once again have taken the initiative in framing the Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld argument, using a turn of a phrase and making it mean something else.

Take "Special Privilege" for example. In the decision, "Hamdan vs. Rumfield" decision Justice Kennedy did not say "Special Privilege". He said "Special PROTECTIONS", not "Special Privileges". By taking the legal concept of protected rights, even for a charged terrorist, the Republican position is that terrorists, alleged terrorists, and anyone else the administration decides may be a terrorist, with a continuously broadening definition of terrorist, have no rights. No Rights of Man, which our Revolutionary forefathers risked their lives and treasure for.

The Republicans position is that an entire class of human beings do not have the rights of man, they do not have the right to be charged and tried for their crimes or alleged crimes, and that they can be held indefinitely without charge, without identification to the families, without access to basic humanitarian protections of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent.

The Republican position is that the Laws of War, the humane treatment of POW's, the Geneva Conventions intended to establish ground rules for war, including not shooting non-combatants, not using chemical weapons including napalm, not to use torture as a means of extracting information, and a whole host of other humanitarian protections for ALL combatants.

The Republican position is that they have no problem with violating the Rights of Man.

Now we witness the propaganda aspect of this turn of the phrase. As
Rep. John Conyers points out this phrase "Special Privileges" is out to all of the right wing propaganda outlets, right wing radio, right wing cable TV, right wing press outlets, and right wing blogs. Thus, this two word phrase is out to the world on maybe 10,000 channels, effectively carpet bombing America with that message, painting the Democrats as weak on terrorism, when exactly the opposite is true.

Next, the phrase "pre-9/11 vs. post-9/11 mindset" while a little long for the two word attention span of many Americans, is another example of the channeling of another phrase that frames the Democrats in a way that they are not.

As Justice Kennedy alluded to, and also, the pre-9/11 mentality stood for observance of the Rights of Man, proper observance of legal due process, rules of evidence, Habeas Corpus, charges and the right to a speedy trial by jury, protection of the rights described by the Bill of Rights.

The Republican position is that in their radical view, the fear of terrorism and the promulgation of the politics of fear and smear justify any usurpation of American's freedoms from government intrusion into any aspect of our lives that they feel is somehow even obliquely related to terrorism.

Terrorism and the fear of it, which is widely dispersed by the Fear-Monger-in-Chief, the Vice-Fear-Monger-in-Chief and their political operatives and their outsourced Propaganda Ministry (Right wing Radio, TV, Print and Internet), is the official policy of the Republican Party and its President. (Sorry for the long subordinate clause.)

I have been studying propaganda for several years, and this technique was developed during World War I! There is nothing new in what the Republicans are doing. If you can stand to read 8 pages of what I have written, I have prepared a summary of the war propaganda process and have published it on the QuestionItNow blog. Here is a link: How to Sell A War

The reason I feel that the war analogy for is appropriate here is that the Republicans are looking at this election as all-out war on Democrats, our democratic political system, the Constitution, our freedoms, which were bought with the blood of one million dead soldiers, and 30 or 40 million soldiers who served.

That is the Republicans, led by their evil political director, Mr. Karl Rove have declared War on America, and they will stop at nothing until they have achieved the total subjection of our Freedom, our Constitution which is the only thing between our freedom and a tyrannical government, our right to privacy, the legitimacy of our government, to break down the wall between Church and State, to destroy Public Education in America, to allow the polluters to destroy our environment to line their pockets.

As usual, my list is too short, but in the interest of having anyone read this post, I will stop it here.

FYI, two Bloggers from ConyersBlog , Sanity Sojourner and Tahoebasha1 helped with editing "How to Sell A War." Both improved the finished product.

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