France faces the future

[Bassman]

[quote user="jond"]Bassman - I won't disagree that statistics can be (very successfully) couched in terms intended to decieve, but I cannot agree that this necessarily renders them useless. Skilled interpretation can pull useful information even from the most contrived figures. Certainly when preparing "country briefs" our analysts would always quote numbers and percentages of people of working age engaged in employment. They may have had to spend days digging through the mountains of spin and bull put out by governments, but they could usually arrive at a workable number. They would do the same when calculating tax-take from average incomes and from GDP (another thing that governments are really good at spinning) and came to the revealling conclusion that in all of the (then 15) nations of the EU is was the same to within a couple of percentage points.

Just for the record, virtually all of my French friends are optimistic about their economic futures. So are most of my British friends. It must be the people I hang out with.

[/quote]

 

Jond - it's not a question of them being "couched" in terms intended to deceive it's a case of them being completely inaccurate or even completely fictitious !!! If the base figures which come out of the local offices are rubbish you could analyse them forever and they would still be meaningless !! no spin no bull just rubbish numbers, This was part of my job for 20+ years and I don't say it lightly that I have seen numbers pulled out of thin air at times!! If I was to say "there are 2,342 people unemployed in an area when in fact there are 3,127 or maybe 1,798" how can anyone analyze that into a workable number??? multiply that sort of innacuracy over the number of local offices in the UK and they are indeed useless, add into the equation the scams.. sorry schemes devised to massage the figures and it's even more worthless.

 

Also believe me the U/E figures are not the only stats that I know have been invented, the Retail Price Index figures used to be collected by the same dept. by local offices .... now as these figures were nothing to do with this dept. and were collected on behalf of another one ( the DoE was used to collect them as they had so many local offices spread around the UK) the people sent out to the shops to get them have been known to go to a local cafe and sit down with a cup of coffee and invent them or just sit in the office and do them as their real work of dealing with the U/E was more important

[Tresco]

[quote user="Bassman"]

...it's not a question of them being "couched" in terms intended to deceive it's a case of them being completely inaccurate or even completely fictitious !!! [/quote]

Sadly this is true.

There's another thing about stats. which that is, if you don't have any understanding of the means by which they are generated, then it really isn't that easy to sort the wheat from the chaff.

So those of you who imagine people sitting down and making rational assessments about the validity etc. of the figures they are faced with are ignoring  - as we often do - the fact is that most people see stats. in a newspaper, where no discussion of hypothesis/ese, method, aims or objectives is given.

Trust me, [6]  I'm a Stats Gal [;-)] (and you will rarely - if ever - see me quote the blighters).

[Pangur]

Sure, I agree that stats can be twisted and turned.  Bassman, I too have  worked with Dept of Work and Pensions data, specifically on IB and their internal figures are not always what I would call properly collected statistics.  Governments have their own agendas - IB being a key case in point - and the figures they produce should certainly not be taken at face value, nor analysed in a vaccum.   But I can assure you, there are a lot of independent professional researchers out there who take pride in ensuring the stats they collect are as valid as can be.  

It is true, in general people know and care little about who is quoting the stats and where they are coming from. But they are usually a lot more illuminating that the experiences of say, one or two anonymous posters on an internet forum, and can help people understand that their experience is not the only valid one.  Personal experiences can add colour and depth to figures and vice versa.  To dismiss all statistics that don't agree with your personal point of view, or the views of your neighbours and the media you purchase is, in my opinion, either extremely naive or extremely arrogant.

 

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="SaligoBay"]

[quote user="jond"]Just for the record,

virtually all of my French friends are optimistic about their economic

futures. So are most of my British friends. It must be the people I

hang out with.

[/quote]

You've already told us that you're in a divided community, and

you're on the right side of the

tracks.   It's money talking.  Jolly hockey

sticks to you, my dear, and I mean that most sincerely. 

[/quote]

Oh, you are a wag! The people I hang out with tend to be optimists

rather than Rothschilds. The village I live in is indeed divided -

along Catholic / non-Catholic lines, as are many in the Vendée (and

probably across France - I wouldn't know).

My friends here are mostly farmers (please do feel free to make some

insulting comment about my "Brownie Integration Badge") who drive

around in 10 year old cars. They feel optimistic that thay may soon be

able to sell oil crops into biodiesel manufacture at a price that takes

them out of the subsidy net. Oddly they feel that this would be a good

thing (something to do with chairty & pride).

And I don't play hockey.

[SaligoBay]

I know, it's lovely looking at how happy Poor People can be, isn't it?   Living in a subsidy net and they're still smiling, makes you feel quite happy inside.

I'd forgotten all about the Brownie Integration Badge, it was so long ago, but it obviously made an impression on you.  It's nice to have one's little efforts noticed from on high.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="SaligoBay"]

I'd forgotten all about the Brownie Integration Badge, it was so

long ago, but it obviously made an impression on you.  It's nice

to have one's little efforts noticed from on high.

[/quote]

It postdates my little piece on how this village is split up, I think, which I am pleased that you also seem to remember.

[Bassman]

[quote user="Pangur"]

Sure, I agree that stats can be twisted and turned.  Bassman, I too have  worked with Dept of Work and Pensions data, specifically on IB and their internal figures are not always what I would call properly collected statistics.  Governments have their own agendas - IB being a key case in point - and the figures they produce should certainly not be taken at face value, nor analysed in a vaccum.   But I can assure you, there are a lot of independent professional researchers out there who take pride in ensuring the stats they collect are as valid as can be.  

It is true, in general people know and care little about who is quoting the stats and where they are coming from. But they are usually a lot more illuminating that the experiences of say, one or two anonymous posters on an internet forum, and can help people understand that their experience is not the only valid one.  Personal experiences can add colour and depth to figures and vice versa.  To dismiss all statistics that don't agree with your personal point of view, or the views of your neighbours and the media you purchase is, in my opinion, either extremely naive or extremely arrogant.

 

[/quote]

 

Oh I just about give up!!

 

I am not talking about stats being twisted and turned or massaged or spun or messed with in any way shape or form!! I am saying that if the BASE, RAW DATA from the GROUND UP figures are wrong/fictitious/made up/pulled out of fresh air no amount of independent professional research is going to make them remotely accurate or useful ! Unless these independent professional researchers actually collect these stats themselves (and I am not talking about from local or area or regional or head offices I mean unless they actually do the counts themselves and collect the raw data) they can in no way ensure they are valid

 

I don't know at which level you were working with Dept of Work and Pensions data or where it came from, but if it came from any level above local office i.e. the level that actually deals with the public face to face 8 hours a day then the figures are likely to be junk.. That Dept. does not have a professional statistician in each  local office collating stats, they have the low paid overworked staff who are trying to deal with difficult and often violent clients keeping stats on pieces of paper and on PC's and having to collate them at the end of the week whilst trying to do a multitude of other things so it is no surprise that numbers get made up.

It would be like me saying I know or could analyse someones personal life and circumstances from posts made on a forum which is impossible as everything they post could be complete invention.

It's a case of garbage in = garbage out

I am neither extremely naive or extremely arrogant just stating a few facts from 20+ years of experience at local office level that I know to be true not dismissing all statistics that don't agree with my personal point of view, or the views of my neighbours and the media I purchase ( I don't actually purchase any media as I believe the rubbish in newspapers about as much as I believe DoE/DWP statistics [;-)]) If you choose not to believe me then that is your prerogative [:D]

[Pangur]

I think we're at crosspurposes here Bassman.  I agree fully with your point about junk in junk out.

However, not all statistics are collected in the same way as those you were collating at DWP, and researchers certainly don't always use the base data.  It's there as a starting point.  I can tell you that there are many independent researchers analysing stats and researching issues who are not idiots, do not have a political agenda and are only too aware of  issues just like the ones you have outlined.  If they are doing their job properly, they design a methodology to iron out as many problems as possible, and take this into account.   You can't map the world and people's opinions 100% accurately but you can get a pretty good overview.   There has to be some way of looking at the big picture. 

By the way, the comment about naivety/arrogance was meant to be a general one about people's refusal to believe things that don't tally with personal experience, and not directly at you personally - sorry about that!

[Bassman]

[quote user="Pangur"]

I think we're at crosspurposes here Bassman.  I agree fully with your point about junk in junk out.

However, not all statistics are collected in the same way as those you were collating at DWP, and researchers certainly don't always use the base data.  It's there as a starting point.  I can tell you that there are many independent researchers analysing stats and researching issues who are not idiots, do not have a political agenda and are only too aware of  issues just like the ones you have outlined.  If they are doing their job properly, they design a methodology to iron out as many problems as possible, and take this into account.   You can't map the world and people's opinions 100% accurately but you can get a pretty good overview.   There has to be some way of looking at the big picture. 

By the way, the comment about naivety/arrogance was meant to be a general one about people's refusal to believe things that don't tally with personal experience, and not directly at you personally - sorry about that!

[/quote]

 

Probably [;-)]

 

I can only speak for the statistics of which I have first hand experience and that of my wife who has experienced the same things in the business world working for some very large well known companies, it tends to make you rather cynical about statistics in general when you know how inaccurate some of the most well known and oft quoted ones in the UK actually are [;-)]

I have had people say  "Ah but these very clever well paid people can see through these things and find the truth" welllll no if I sit here and say I have 3 apples, 6 oranges, 2 bananas and a lemon when in fact I have 10 apples, no oranges, 6 bananas and 3 lemons the only way to find out the truth is to come and count them [:D]which is the whole problem with stats as you say junk in -junk out [;-)]

 

I spent many years trying to explain to people in regional offices that what they wanted wasn't actually possible but they would just say that's what we want so you have to produce it somehow [8-)] a bit like asking a plumber to fit a heating system but refusing to let them have any pipes or tools, in the end people just say OK heres some numbers I hope your happy with them [:-))]