The business courses I took in college has helped me look at numbers without getting overly baffled or falling asleep. Unemployment numbers are supposedly falling, but there are some things I am seeing that would tend to seem otherwise.
One of the things I look at when determining unemployment rates is traffic over a course of a day. Traffic should be heaviest between 6:00AM and 9:00AM and between 3:00PM and 6:00PM. The roads are usually light between 9:00AM and 3:00PM with the only people driving are seniors, stay-at-home moms and dads, people who drive as part of their job, and the unemployed.
While the senior population is rising, it is not rising at a skyrocketing rate. stay-at-home moms are working raising children. They drive to the supermarket and to stores shopping for the family during the day (often with their children.) People who drive as part of their jobs include pizza deliverers, police, sales and businesspeople, and drug dealers. Traffic from these people hasn’t increased.
This leaves the unemployed. I know that the spike is from unemployment because traffic has gotten lighter during rush hours (especially the morning rush, when many unemployed people are still sleeping.) One would think the unemployed would spend their driving time driving to job interviews and to businesses to pick up job applications. But they also can be found at places people who have a limited income due to a lack of a job probably do not belong. They can be found at stores, at the gym (membership fees are not cheap), and at the nudie bar.
I usually determine economic growth by a different measurement than the numbers spewed by business publications. I determine the growth of the economy by the number of tractor-trailers on the interstates. The more tractor-trailers on the interstates, the more goods are being delivered and bought and the better the economy is. There hasn’t been a lot of trucks on the highways for a couple of years with no real increase worth bragging about. Notice there hasn’t been a story about a tired truck driver causing an accident lately? It could be because there are fewer loads that need to be delivered. There are also fewer tractor-trailer driving school commercials on TV during Jerry Springer.
When you hear a statistic, it is important to find the meaning of the statistic. If the things you are seeing are contradicting the numbers, then chances are you are correct and the numbers are wrong.
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December 22, 2011
Posted by Ahmnodt Heare |
commentary, economy, editorial, humor, satire | driving, numbers, statistics, tractor trailers, traffic, unemployment |
4 Comments
Don’t be tensive about today being the tenth day of the tenth month of the two-thousand-tenth year. It’s not often I write about numbers, but everybody is talking about 10-10-10 as if it has any significance.
Here is why it doesn’t: It is only 2010 on the Christian calendar. It is Chesvan 2, 5771 on the Hebrew calendar and it’s Thul-Qedah 2, 1431.
Some say I have tenacity for debunking the significance of today’s date. Others will say I am causing a lot of tension. Why are they called tentacles when an octopus only has eight of them? Are you going to go through today tentatively?
“Ten” is just a number. Don’t give it too much attention.
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October 10, 2010
Posted by Ahmnodt Heare |
Ahmnodt, commentary, editorial, satire | 10, 10/10/10, calendars, numbers, superstition |
4 Comments
Ahmnodt Heare for President 
Inside the Numbers
The business courses I took in college has helped me look at numbers without getting overly baffled or falling asleep. Unemployment numbers are supposedly falling, but there are some things I am seeing that would tend to seem otherwise.
One of the things I look at when determining unemployment rates is traffic over a course of a day. Traffic should be heaviest between 6:00AM and 9:00AM and between 3:00PM and 6:00PM. The roads are usually light between 9:00AM and 3:00PM with the only people driving are seniors, stay-at-home moms and dads, people who drive as part of their job, and the unemployed.
While the senior population is rising, it is not rising at a skyrocketing rate. stay-at-home moms are working raising children. They drive to the supermarket and to stores shopping for the family during the day (often with their children.) People who drive as part of their jobs include pizza deliverers, police, sales and businesspeople, and drug dealers. Traffic from these people hasn’t increased.
This leaves the unemployed. I know that the spike is from unemployment because traffic has gotten lighter during rush hours (especially the morning rush, when many unemployed people are still sleeping.) One would think the unemployed would spend their driving time driving to job interviews and to businesses to pick up job applications. But they also can be found at places people who have a limited income due to a lack of a job probably do not belong. They can be found at stores, at the gym (membership fees are not cheap), and at the nudie bar.
I usually determine economic growth by a different measurement than the numbers spewed by business publications. I determine the growth of the economy by the number of tractor-trailers on the interstates. The more tractor-trailers on the interstates, the more goods are being delivered and bought and the better the economy is. There hasn’t been a lot of trucks on the highways for a couple of years with no real increase worth bragging about. Notice there hasn’t been a story about a tired truck driver causing an accident lately? It could be because there are fewer loads that need to be delivered. There are also fewer tractor-trailer driving school commercials on TV during Jerry Springer.
When you hear a statistic, it is important to find the meaning of the statistic. If the things you are seeing are contradicting the numbers, then chances are you are correct and the numbers are wrong.
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December 22, 2011 Posted by Ahmnodt Heare | commentary, economy, editorial, humor, satire | driving, numbers, statistics, tractor trailers, traffic, unemployment | 4 Comments