Lies, Damn Lies, and the Usual Lying Statistical Claims Not Based in Facts . . .

Daily Mail in an article about the potential problems facing returning Afghan vets (there's no data about actual cases, just speculation about potential down the road problems) quotes a hoary old statistic that may have been close to the truth at one point in the early 80s, but here as we quickly approach the second decade of the 21st century is utterly ludicrous.

In the U.S., it is estimated that 44 per cent of all homeless people are Vietnam veterans.

No, 44% of homeless are not Vietnam Vets, that's absurd on the face of it. I live in Santa Monica, "Home of the Homeless", and I can tell you that the vast majority of homeless are not old enough to have served in Vietnam (though plenty claim to have, though I guess enough have been busted on their accounts of being in Vietnam that they tend to update their tales of harrowing experiences that inexorably forced them to a life on the streets to the 1st Gulf War). The kind of PTSD inducing combat that might leave somebody forever scarred largely ended by 1973, and we were completely out of Vietnam by 1975, so unless you were born before 1955, it's impossible for you to have experienced combat in Vietnam. 44% of homeless people in the United States are not over the age of 54, and of those that are homeless and old enough to have served in Vietnam, nowhere near 100% of those folks did.

After some quick googling, I can't find any study that states such a high number, for current populations of homeless (again, 25 years ago, a number like that would seem plausible, but not now). Seems the last big federal government study about homelessness was done by HUD in 1996 (and updated in 1999), and even 13 years ago, homeless veterans constituted less than 25% of overall homeless, and in other studies from 13 years ago, even then Vietnam Vets were around 40% of the total of male homeless people (women veterans rarely end up homeless, interestingly), and in the intervening 13 years, I'm certain there's been attrition to that number (this table from HUD is of people using their services, but they speculate based on other surveys that there numbers are in line with the total figures)

If I threw out a statistic claiming that 20% of British Seamen suffered from rickets, I bet you could go back through the historical record and find a time when 20% of limey sailors suffered all sorts of wonderful diseases, but that's not the case now, and if I were using those old statistics to make a claim about the scope of a future problem, then I'd hope anyone reading would laugh off my ridiculous suggestion.

And as far as the gist of the article, I'm not understanding why it matters whether British Veterans get their free health care from the NHS or from the military. What difference does it make? Either way, the government is picking up the tab, and a psychiatrist is a psychiatrist, whether they work on a military base, or in an NHS run clinic. If anything, an NHS based service should be more convenient, and more easily accessible than if veterans could only seek care from military specialist.

This shouldn't be viewed as a problem at all, unless NHS doctors exhibit anti-military bias (which wouldn't be surprising), and the general service at NHS clinics was sub-standard (again, wouldn't be at all surprising).

Combat is traumatic, always has been, always will be, societies have differed in how to help combatants to recover from their experiences, and social mores have sent troops into conflicts with differing skill sets in how to process their experiences to begin with. It's inevitable that combat leaves a mark, it's not inevitable that it leads to an inability to reintergrate with society at large, and most veterans have found a way in which to carry on with their lives and function even with the memories of what they did and what they faced. We need to honor those that defend our freedoms, and give them all the help they need, but we shouldn't be so quick to lump all combat veterans into the 'ticking time bomb' stereotype that pervades Hollywood and the rest of media, cause history and experience shows that stereotype as being false and pernicious.

Meaningless Statistics Lead to Meaningless and Misleading Conclusions

The latest meaningless statistic floating about is the 'sudden' drop in the U.S.A's ranking in life expectancy.

It's a very misleading number, for a number of reasons, but this is being used by advocates of more nannyism to promote more nannyism.

First of all, 77.9 ain't bad for life expectancy, but even that number is just being pulled out of thin air. The very top is 83.5 for Andorra, which isn't particularly different in quantity. If someone dies before their 84th birthday, do you say they died too soon? Do you think someone who dies before blowing out 78 candles was stricken too early? Didn't think so. Anything past 75 is a full life. Some people pack more living in their years than others, but basically, any healthy years past the age of 75 is pure gravy (and death before 75 is too soon).

But the number is still a lie. One of the bigger components dragging down the USA's number compared to other developed (and under-developed nations) is the way we count infant mortality. We count 'live births' differently than the rest of the world, and babies that would never be delivered elsewhere, get delivered here. That alone could account for the difference between the USA and France, UK, or Germany. We have the highest infant mortality rate because we count every infant. Europe doesn't, a lot of cases that they consider 'stillbirths' are full term or close to full term babies. Their lower rate of premies isn't necessarily cause of better neo-natal care, but because their view of 'viability' is completely different, and they are much quicker to abort fetuses for medical reasons (even in the 2nd and 3rd trimester).

The European view on this is more 'pragmatic', which makes comparing health statistics impossible when there's such a huge cultural difference in this area of medicine (the wiki explains the difference succinctly) pure bunk. I bet if we were to count all women who enter the 3rd trimester and then compared survivability one year out, suddenly the European mortality rate would look worse if not comparable to the USA's. But they don't keep that statistic, so there's no way to do the comparison.

I haven't seen a single article mentioning the new US ranking that brings up the huge differences in reporting on infant mortality, though they do mention how our 'high' infant mortality rate factors into our lower life expectancy at birth.

Also, how accurate is life expectancy at birth? It's not outside the realm of possibility that some children born in 2004 may end up living in some form or another well beyond 'natural' life spans. Read enough sci-fi, and you can start to believe that within 75 years downloading of consciousness into a neural net, or transferring consciousness from an older body to a younger body is an achievable goal. Look where technology was 75 years ago, and given the exponential rate at which certain technologies advance, the possibility that real life extension (turning life spans into centuries rather than decades), might be possible. There are a few non-nut doctors out their who are working on 'curing' aging.

And if aging does get 'cured' I bet there will be plenty of Americans lined up to get cured. So the real average life expectancy for an American kid born in 2004 could end up being well beyond 77.9, if the aging cure ends up not being ridiculously expensive, then a significant portion (at least significant enough to greatly alter the average) of Americans born in 2004 might still be around in 2400.

The mind boggles, but I'd rather think about that than use some dumb easily manipulated statistic that relies on governments to report on themselves to tell us that we're 'slipping' compared to the rest of the world.

I've already heard some folks use this as another cudgel with which to beat us into submission on the notion that nationalized and socialized medicine is superior.

Yet I don't see anyone looking at how many of those countries ahead of us in life expectancy also 'lead' us in percentage of the population who smokes. Maybe we just need to smoke more. Seems to work for Japan.

And one more thing, another thing needlessly brought up in this article is the disparity between 'black' and 'white' life expectancies. You want to 'cure' that disparity, then legalize drugs. Much of the disparity is due to the violence and incarceration targeting black men associated with the drug trade. Make the drugs legal, and the street crime, and disparity in death rate will evaporate (though some extra OD deaths may occur, I would guess that this increase would be less significant than the much greater drop in deaths due to illicit drug trade related gun play).

So these are my conclusions, if you want the USA to climb up this chart again, legalize drugs, game our infant mortality statistics the same way Europe does, and don't over-regulate biomedical research. Do those things, and we'll be number one (or at least number eleven) again in no time.

Punitive Communitarianism

After reading this article in Aftenposten, a Norwegian English language daily, I think I've come up with a new take on an old idea.

The thing going on in that fine Nordic country can only be described as punitive communitarianism. You're going to love your fellow man, even if it kills you. It's hard to measure comparative tax burdens, but I think an interesting measure is to look at what the government revenues are on a per capita basis, and by percentage of GDP.

When measured that way, the story in Norway is mindboggling.

Norway's a small country population wise, a wealthy one too. According to an article last week on the same website, they have the most 'dollar millionaires' per capita of any nation. Their per capita income is slightly better than $46,000 per year, putting them sixth on the per capita income list as ranked in The World Factbook.

For the sake of comparison let's look at the top nine (plus two other countries/dependencies) as ranked by the CIA.

#1 on the list is tiny Luxemborg. Population, 480,222, population growth rate of 1.207%, GDP (purchasing power parity) $33.87B, and a per capita of a whopping $71,400. Government revenues are 19.07B. That translates to 56.3% of GDP, and a per capita rate of government revenue rounded to about $39,700.

#2 on the list is Bermuda. The shorts business must be booming, that or lots of European tax exiles distorting the figures. Also, not fully independent of the UK. Population 66,163, population growth rate of .576%, GDP(ppp) $4.5B, per capita $69,900. The government revenue collected is a relatively minuscule $738M. That's only 16.4% of GDP, and a per capita govt revenue around $11,200 per shorts wearing Bermudan.

#3 on the list is Jersey. Another island dependency of the UK high on this list. Population 91,321, pop growth .244%, GDP(ppp) $5.1B, per capita $57,000. Gov't revenue only $829M. 16.3% of GDP in gov't revenue, which figures to a per cow/person basis around $9,000.

#4 on the list is Equatorial Guinea. An oil rich African military dictatorship that despite great wealth suffers from 30% unemployment and yet is still a destination country for the trafficking of children for labor and women and children for sex work, not exactly a tropical paradise. It's a poster child for how great natural wealth in a country doesn't equal prosperity, but the numbers look great on paper. Population 551,201, growth rate 2.015%, GDP(ppp) 25.69B, per capita $50,200. Gov't revenue 2.752B. 10.7% of GDP in gov't revenue, around $5000 per capita.

#5 on the list is United Arab Emirates. An oil rich Arab country on the Persian Gulf. Pop 4,444,011. Growth a very frisky 3.997%, GDP(ppp) $129.5B, per capita $49,700. Gov't rev is $60.3B, which gives them 46.6% gov't rev. as share of GDP, and shakes out to $13,600 per sheik.

#6 on the list is Norway. The poster child for a communitarian social welfare cradle to grave managed market paradise. Don't let the whiners in the article linked above scare you away with their tales of $9/gallon gasoline, or 2.5% tax on all real estate transactions. Instead revel in the numbers. Pop 4,627,926, growth rate a reserved .363%, GDP(ppp) $213.6B, per capita $46,300. Govt rev $195.8B, which only somebody who doesn't love their fellow man would complain about it's 91.7% share of GDP, or its per capita burden around $42,300 per Norwegian not pining for the fjords (no need to pine when the fjords are a short drive away, or maybe you might pine a little when you realize how much the petrol bill will run should you choose to drive to said fjords when all those gas taxes cause the cost of a gallon to be northward of $9).

#7 on the list is Guernsey cause the one thing you can't get enough on this list is UK dependencies. Another English Channel Island with a really high per capita income rate. Pop 65,573, growth .239%, GDP(ppp) $2.742B, per capita $44,600, gov't rev 563.6M. Comes out to a modest 20.6% and only $8,600 per Guernsey cow/person.

#8 on the list is Ireland. Yes, Ireland, the Emerald Isle, is now the surprisingly rich Emerald Isle. Pop 4,109,086 (isn't there more Irish than that in Massachusetts?), pop growth a healthy for Europe 1.143%, GDP(ppp) $180.7B per capita $44,500 (that's a lot of potatos), gov't revenue a reasonable (for an EU nation) $75.49B. That's a percentage of 41.8% and a per step dancer rate of $18,400.

#9 on the list is the greatest country in the history of the whole universe. That's right, it's the U S of A. Love it or leave it, as they say. Pop 301,139,947, pop growth .894%, GDP(ppp) a mind boggling $13.13 Trillion, per capita at an impressive $44,000. Government revenue is an obscene $2.409T (I bet we could get by with only $2T). Despite the government revenues seeming crazy, it's just 18.3% of GDP, and around $8000 per person.

Now let's look at the two places most similar to Norway in population for comparison

Georgia has 4,646,003, pop growth is -.329%, GDP(ppp) 17.88B, per capita income a paltry $3,800 (might help explain the negative growth rate), gov't revenue is $1.726B. That's only 9.7%, and only $372 per person. That's about as far away from Norway as you can get.

Singapore has 4,553,009 folks, pop growth 1.275%, GDP(ppp) 141.2B, per capita a solid $31,400. Gov't revenue is a restrained $19.71B. That's a rather unburdened 14% and a manageable $4300 per Singaporean.

I'm sure there's a reason that economists don't look at that number, or calculate government revenues as a percentage of GDP. Gov't revenue comes from many sources, and countries with lots of nationalized industries would have their results skewed (like Norway). But I think it gives you a sliver of a picture of the type of society a country has developed. Norway's punitive communitarianism is only sustainable so long as the government controls some natural resource that brings in solid revenues (in their case, oil). It's certainly better that they use that revenue on their people when compared to a country like Equatorial Guinea where all that oil wealth is just going to the few. But just looking at the numbers, Ireland would seem like a much better place to work and do business in Europe (and companies and people have been drawn there because of their low taxes, and still decent services), United States despite its huge economy manages to get by on a relatively small tax burden for a mature economy. Also, Singapore really does kick a lot of ass when it comes to economic freedom and pro-growth policies, too bad about the authoritarian streak when it comes to everything else.

Seems like Norway's way isn't as appealing as it once was for Norwegians, and that kind of punitive taxation must scare away any sort of business that isn't looking to work within the public or government controlled sector. That's not an environment that encourages innovation or problem solving skills. Looking at the top nine places in terms of GDP, Norway, Equatorial Guinea, and United Arab Emirates would collapse if oil prices dropped back down below $30 a barrel (not likely anytime soon barring a new technology drastically changing energy production and usage). Norway's screwed if that happens, they just don't realize it. Economic activity alone can't support the massive revenues their government demands. At least the folks in Norway are starting to question the point of tacking on punitive fees for every activity that people might engage in. And not surprisingly, all the various communitarian oriented NGOs and UN commissions think every place should be like Norway and Norway ranks highly in their rankings.

One last article from Aftenposten, if you want a good example of what happens when you put crazily punitive taxes on everything, two words for you, MEAT SMUGGLING.

(quit that snickering in the back, what's so funny about the phrase, 'meat smuggling'?)