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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Buy the numbers?

When you hear some politician stand up and say that the $787 billion  stimulus bill will "create or save 75,000 jobs in Indiana," are you at least a little bit skeptical? You should be. My ex-editorial page colleague Bob Caylor did a little math and came up with something very curious about estimates of the bill's effects:

The estimates show a curious uniformity, given the widely varying unemployment rates and economic conditions among states and regions within states.

The White House says the bill will save or create 3.5 million jobs

Comments

Michael B-P
Wed, 02/18/2009 - 2:24pm

Sounds alarmingly similar to the type of statistically improbable consistent returns blessed by the "auditors" of recently FBI-busted Ponzi schemes. Maybe those "auditors" made a career move . . .

Kevin Knuth
Wed, 02/18/2009 - 3:49pm

Interesting- but do those number EXCLUDE people under 18 and over retirement age or the ENTIRE population?

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