crap statistics again

in today's IT yet more misuse of statistics by a lobby group, in this case the public health alliance. the conclusions drawn from the study* by the pha and as reported in the times are not supported by the data, and could only be arrived at by confirmation biases and the correlative fallacy. for example this..

The study by the Public Health Alliance shows factors linked to a person's economic background can put their lives at greater risk.

Children in low-income homes are more likely to be born small with low birth rates, leaving them with poorer health in later life and reduced life expectancy.

Men from the lowest socio-economic groups in Northern Ireland live an average of six-years less than those from wealthier backgrounds. Death rates among people in the lowest occupational class was up to 200 per cent higher than the rate for the highest.

Among those in the lower work classes, the death rate for circulatory diseases was 120 per cent higher, 100 per cent higher for cancers, 200 per cent higher for respiratory disease and over 150 per cent higher for injury or poison-related deaths.

....somehow implies that this requires redistribution by government, and that this will make theses differences disappear.

Given the evidence of the impact of inequality on the health of the population it is clear that in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland any attempt to improve health and address inequalities in health must be rooted in social justice, resulting in a fairer distribution of wealth, as well as provision of appropriate, accessible services provided on the basis of need and not ability to pay".

personally i think the whole premise of the study is bogus. comparing the health statistics between economic classes rather than between jobs and education levels, which determine economic class, seems designed to produce this result, which can be used as a pretext for redistribution.

*this study sounds like a rehash of one that vincent browne talked about last year. also when i was looking for the phas site i came across this one. take a look at the poll....

Do you agree or disagree that:
"The tobacco, alcohol, food and pharmaceutical industries have too much political power and that this is damaging the health of the Irish population"

framing the question anyone?

liam doran assumes people are fools

liam doran on pat kenny today tried to tell us that reducing the working week of nurses from 39 to 35 hours a week wouldn't require thousands of new nurses just to keep total hours worked constant, tried to imply to kenny that such a notion was some ''health employers''* propaganda and if the health employers just sat down and agree to the ino demands reality will magically bend to so that when the 35000 ino nurses each work 4 hours less a week they will still manage to work the same amount of hours as now. (i may be paraphrasing in parts here)

actually it would take around 4000 extra nurses just to do stand still in terms of hours worked. more revealing is, when trying to justify his obviously absurd statements, he said that the extra work could be done by ''changes to the roster... to the role... to the way we work''. which brings an obvious question to mind, why hasn't this been done already? oops slight slip there liam, kinda implied that nurses are working inefficiently at the moment.

*liam is a good union spokesman all right, he gets round mentioning government by using health employers to put distance between his unions pay claim, 35 hour week and 10% rise in pay, and the fact that everyone else i.e taxpayers will have to pay it.

in the sindo

homes seized as property crisis worsens

this means that some people took out a mortgage that was at the edge of their ability to pay and surely this is indicative of why there's a 'property crisis' in the first place. banks freely dispensing credit and people stretching to take out the largest mortgage possible, both ignoring possible interest rate increases and poo-pooing anyone who pointed this out as a possible problem. both also for some reason assuming that the value of the house wouldn't fall and so their money would be safe. i don't understand why people assume that houses are somehow different to any other manufactured object and are somehow immune to fluctations in price due to changes in supply and demand. the price of a house is determined by how much someone is willing to pay for it, rather than by how much the seller thinks a buyer should pay. now it's being blamed on stamp duty as a convienient scapegoat. blind

help stop global warming, become vegatarian!!

i was wondering when someone would mention this. in the sindo today, there's an article by eilis o hanlon where she points out that a good way to reduce global warming would be for everyone to become vegetarian. ok so being the sindo it actually comes across as simply a way to bash pinkos and greens, but the point still stands. methane kilo for kilo has about 20 times the greenhouse potential as CO2, animals such as cows and sheep produce methane in their guts so reducing meat consumption and production could lower the rate of increase in temperature. it would also have other environmental benefits as she points out, but neglects to mention that the land freed up could be used to produce biomass.

so from the new scientist 10 feb 2007 at the moment the concentration of methane is 2000 ppb and of CO2 is 400 ppm or 400,000 ppb. atomic mass of CH4 is about 16 and that of CO2 is 44. so scaling the kilo for kilo measurement above to parts, i.e per molecule, a molecule of CH4 has roughly 55 times the greenhouse potential of CO2. so ''converting'' if you will, the CH4 concentration to a CO2 concentration for comparison gives you 110,000 ppb. now methane doesn't last as long in the atmosphere as CO2 so that number doesn't give a particularly accurate reading but still reducing methane emissions could be a very efficient way of slowing global warming.

as methane from agriculture is only part of the total of methane released (also some of that results from rice growing), reducing livestock numbers would only save some of this. i should say i'm not particularly in favour of government regulation, in fact i'm skeptical of their motivations, to slow global warming and this only reinforces that stance. apparently not too many governments want to piss off farmers, nor does it have the protectionist potential of carbon taxes. this, along with the debacle that was the Eu's attempt at a carbon market, make me think that the idea that government regulation will save us from global warming is a joke. if you want a job done do it yourself.

i should also say that i'm not much of a meat eater, though not vegetarian. and the methane link, this link all do the above calculations far better, i just like to do them roughly myself.

futility

haven't posted lately, simply due to the futility or the feeling of same of blogging about things the that annoy me. for the simple reason that i'm liberal (or libertarian in american, some dispute though here) and i live in not-even-remotely-liberal ireland so almost everything that politicians or lobby groups propose, manages to offend my belief system. they generally also offend logic and reason but that a seperate issue. anyway this leads to a sort of paralyis, which stupid idea to bitch about first? with the result that nothing is bitched about. on the blog anyway needless to say i do a good bit of eye rolling and disgusted head shaking every day.

for example, just taking what's in the news today

from the IT rabbitt wants state to jointly fund house purchases.

so the government wants to take other peoples money and give it to other people so they can spend more on a house, apparently labour has no idea what a price is or how it is determined, what inflation is, or how the well intentioned zoning laws have the unintended, though inevitable consequence, of driving up the price of land, and therefore houses by artifically limiting supply. in fairness to labour all parties idaes are stupid in this regard though this 'idea' takes the buiscuit.

Opening Labour's annual conference in Dublin, Mr Rabbitte said the housing crisis has created "impossibly long" housing waiting lists, forced unsustainable commutes upon workers and damaged family ties. "We have to come to grips with this issue. What is required is a mechanism that allows people to get a foot on the housing ladder," the Labour leader told delegates. Unlike existing affordable housing schemes, which are limited to those earning below €40,000, homebuyers would not have to meet income limits, nor would they face restrictions about selling the house at any time.

what a load of crap. first off housing crisis? this is apparently where people can't buy a house where they want at the price they they demand. this is not a housing crisis or market failure, it's exactly what happens when government bodies try to ''plan'' development as i pointed out above

The lack of qualifying income limits would not be abused, he said: "People will not want to own less of a share of a house than they can afford. People want to own their own homes." However, qualifying homebuyers would pay a still unfixed monthly fee in return for the State's assistance with their mortgages: "It will be low enough to be affordable, high enough to discourage abuse," he said.

In an example given in a Labour briefing document, seen by The Irish Times last night, a couple able to qualify for a €250,000 mortgage would be able to bid for a €400,000 property once they have been given clearance by their local authority.

"The housing authority will guarantee the balance of the loan necessary to buy at that price - the authority can do this by taking a proportionate stake in the property, with the house-hunter undertaking a minimum quarter stake in the home," the document declared.

"The couple will then repay their approved mortgage in the normal way." The housing authority will also finance the balance, through a new Housing Assistance Fund.

problems with this
1) if someone can only qualify for a 250000 euro mortgage, it means a bank somewhere has looked at their income and doesn't think that they can afford more. i'd like to point out that irish banks aren't stingy with credit and they have a far more knowledge than the government in this area. so how does labour think that these people are going to pay back the other 150000???

2)it presupposes that houses have a fixed value, it obviously hasn't occured to labour that doing this would cause massive inflation in house prices. repeat after me when more money chases scare goods prices go up.

3)the lack of qualifying limits will not be abused???? what planet does this guy live on? i have to admire his faith in his fellow man.

i'm assuming that this is supposed to make people want to vote for them. so will i vote for a party that has absolutely no knowledge of even the most basic economic ideas? emmmm...... no