George Rebane
Has anyone noticed that the use of graphical presentation of data in the media has been on the rise for the last couple of years? Led by the financial publications, as expected, newspapers have started featuring more and more charts and graphs to augment their reporting in areas such as political preferences, social policies, energy, medicine, … all far removed from finance and economics. The charge has been led by the WSJ which has seen a flood of new graphics populating its pages. (As a longtime subscriber, I was one of the little voices in the wilderness constantly calling for such an augmented presentation of news.)
What’s more, the kinds of data and information presented graphically has steadily become more sophisticated, as have the types of graphics used – some of these are new and very innovative. What prompted me to comment on this was a graph (here) in the 7dec17 WSJ showing the aggregate (correlative) behavior over time of the SP500 sectors. Now most readers know that correlation in the usual sense means how dis/similarly TWO measurements behave over time (or space). A correlation value of 1.0 means that the two are flying in perfect formation, a -1.0 means that one is perfectly zigging while the other is zagging, and anything near 0.0 means that the two measurements are doing their own thing while not paying attention to the other.
But the referenced figure in Chelsey Dulaney’s article is a single measure (number) that communicates the cross-correlations between many (>2) measured sector performances. There are several ways to compute such a cross-sectors aggregate correlation measure, and those of us who paid attention in our stat and estimation classes would have no trouble doing so. But the point I want to make here is that the WSJ, a leading internationally known newspaper, now considers its readership to have enough smarts to benefit from such information displays, and understand the article in which Ms Dulaney expands on the correlative performance of the various sectors which has dropped precipitously in this decade.
However, the real (non-technical) news here is that intellectual inequality is rampantly rising given the published test and poll results that report on the aggregate knowledge of our general population. In other words, such mass market publications as the WSJ, Barron’s, Investors Business Daily, … are telling us that there is a growing, yet still small, cohort of intellectual elitists (IEs) that is pulling away from the massive dumbth that has settled over the rest of the population. The social problem here is that these IEs are the ones who understand how the world works, and are therefore able to work and invest more profitably to generate the wealth which overwhelmingly (and here even the progressives agree) funds our governments and industries, creating jobs that fuel consumerism and its over 70% share of our economy (more here).
But a closer examination of this separation of economic classes reveals that the rest of the population is also starting to grow restive as automation becomes a net jobs killer that creates new jobs which are harder to fill by the mis-educated, culturally crippled, and/or genetically disadvantaged. The bottom line is that the overwhelming fraction of Americans remain innumerate, unable to qualify for the over two million jobs currently unfilled nationwide and unable to comprehend the vital details of the social issues before they enter the voting booth.
So I, along with many others, remain in a quandary as to how we will deal with this yawning inequality, not only here in America, but in all developed countries. The Left’s siren song to the masses invokes liberal use of the government gun to force surrender of our liberties in exchange for guarantees of merit-free equality (more here, here, and here). Such enforced equality has always come at the cost of ever lower levels everyone’s quality of life, which fact is carefully concealed from those who are focused on their daily affairs.
[Addendum] Here is a thoughtful information filled essay by economics professor Bryan Caplan on the utility of education in our society – ‘The World Might be Better Off Without College for Everyone’ – published in the Jan/Feb2018 Atlantic. In these pages we have met Professor Caplan over the years (e.g. here).
[10dec17 update] Before astute readers take me to task, I want to point out that there is a distinct possibility that numeracy is not on the rise, and may instead be declining as a fraction of our population. WSJ’s epiphany about its readership’s cognitive abilities may be totally independent of the state of numeracy in the land. Such a burst in their use of complex graphical presentations of data and information can also profitably be undertaken in a knowledge environment wherein the number of WSJ readers stays more or less constant, while the innumerate population surrounding them increases, thereby relegating the numerate cohort to occupy a smaller and more noticeably 'unequal' segment of Americans. To resolve this, we await the next installment of the Longitudinal Study of Adult American Literacy that is conducted decadally by the National Center for Education Statistics in the Department of Education.
[11dec17 update] Kudos to George Boardman for his column in the 11dec17 Union that highlights the troglodyte ‘intellectuals’ who have and continue to oppose high speed broadband for western Nevada County based on their medieval knowledge of basic science (a component of numeracy). As any piece of remote real estate in the country, NC needs to keep up with the technology that connects us to the rest of the world. Our quality of life and economic development depends on nothing less. Yet these leftwing primitives have done everything possible to oppose the erection of new transmission towers and other infrastructure that would support modern communications with the new G5 telecom protocols. Their unfounded fears that such radio frequencies are supposed to cause harm include everything from brain cancer to the heartbreak of psoriasis. The progressives like to characterize conservatives as hanging on to old, dysfunctional, and stultifying beliefs. And the real truth has always been, that it is always the collectivists who are scared sans poop (that’s ‘shitless’ in French) of change because they know they can’t handle it as demonstrated by their perennial ignorance of what motivates human behavior. It is the capitalists (not to be confused with the corporatists), on the other hand, who relish the freedoms that support change and the constant challenge of new horizons. Even though Mr Boardman is no capitalist, his column (here) is worth a read to get an update of the liberals’ impact on our community.
rebanesruminations.com 
Leave a comment