Terrible Analysis Should be a Crime

I've been following up on a lot of economic reports recently and I have to say that the quality of analysis being published on the internet is crap. Not just ordinary crap, but the kind of crap that might have come out of mutant cow that should've been shot in the first place.

Yeah, it's that bad and I am in a ranting mood.

Just having data doesn't make you intelligent

Sure, having data might make you *seem* intelligent, because it might imply that you did some "research" possibly leading to some interesting conclusion, but saying stupid things based on good data still doesn't change anything-- you'd still be an idiot.

I remember once I was listening to a commentator quote that once that the richest 10%, despite making about 90% of the wealth should be outraged because 10% of the population was paying 90% of the taxes. Hence progressive taxes are a bad thing-- we should have a flat tax instead.

For a second, he sounded intelligent. After I thought about it, he was a total idiot.

Suppose that we did have a flat tax. The people that made 90% of the wealth would pay 90% of the taxes by definition of a flat tax. Suppose that there were 11 people out there. 1 man that made $9 and 10 men that made $1 and everyone was taxed at 10%.

The total amount of money made was $10, so the government would get $1 out of it. Right? So let's figure out how much everyone paid!

The 1 rich guy paid $0.9, the 10 poor guys each paid $0.01 for a total of $0.1. The rich guy that made 90% of the money paid 90% of the taxes!

I am surprised that people with intellectual deficiencies this bad haven't been weeded out by natural selection because it takes talent to be this stupid!

Critical Analysis is Crucial

The ability to think critically is essential, because this directly relates a person's ability to put data into perspective. In other words, it's what gives meaning to data. Meaningless data is useless, the same goes for people that don't have critical thinking skills.

If you think I'm being harsh, well... the conversation would just have to end here... Heh.

Just being Critical doesn't Mean that you're Smart

Especially if you're wrong. We all know the loud mouthed critical dude that thinks he knows his stuff but is completely off the deep end. If you want an ounce of respect, you've gotta be right. Right in ways that are concrete and measurable.

Now that's the real test of intelligence.

It's tough being smart. Smart people know this and know when to shut up. The stupid ones don't.