[quote]doogie wrote:
I’ll add some spin.
From everything I’ve learned about Stanford on this thread, I think it is fair to say that their admission policies discriminate against the poor and against conservatives.[/quote]
…unless you can play football. Then the rich libs can cheer you, but later won’t want you as a neighbor.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
harris447 wrote:
As opposed to self-made man Dubya?
C’mon, you’re smarter than this at least.
What year did YOU have display the intestinal fortitude to give up a debilitating habit such as alcohol?
What year did YOU graduate from Harvard?
What year did YOU graduate from YALE?
What year did you get elected as Governor of Texas?
What year did YOU get reelected as Governor of Texas?
What year did YOU get elected President of the United States?
What year did YOU get reelected President of the United States?
MANY are born into wealth and power. Few rise to the occasion the way GW has.
Enough with your hate…
[/quote]
Darn it Zeb, you beat me to it!!
Good job!!
HH
[quote]ZEB wrote:
harris447 wrote:
As opposed to self-made man Dubya?
C’mon, you’re smarter than this at least.
What year did YOU have display the intestinal fortitude to give up a debilitating habit such as alcohol?
What year did YOU graduate from Harvard?
What year did YOU graduate from YALE?
What year did you get elected as Governor of Texas?
What year did YOU get reelected as Governor of Texas?
What year did YOU get elected President of the United States?
What year did YOU get reelected President of the United States?
MANY are born into wealth and power. Few rise to the occasion the way GW has.
Enough with your hate…
[/quote]
My daddy did’t get me into Yale or Harvard. I got a C average at a different school in Boston.
As for the rest, please shove it up your ass. For a grown up to say that Bush hasn’t traded on his name while appealling to the lowest common denominator is pathetic.
Hatred? No, your views on homosexuality would be hatred. People don’t like Bush because he is incompetent and in line to be the worst president we’ve ever had.
The ‘hatred’ bullshit is as see-through as used neutrogena.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
What year did YOU display the intestinal fortitude to give up a debilitating habit such as alcohol?[/quote]
OMG! I don’t know what’s funniest, your Freudian spelling mistake or the way you’re playing him as a “hero” of alcoholism.
ZEB, I can safely say that as soon as you learn to spell, you definitely have a chance as the next White House Press Secretary.
Your innate talent for spin is off the chart. Get some writing classes and you’ll be set for life in Washington.
[quote]doogie wrote:
I really do want to carry on the conversation and I really am interested in all the questions that follow. I would like to learn more about this. I took a political analysis course in undergrad and a “statistics for morons” graduate course, but that’s the extent of my understanding of statistics and polling. If you are too offended to continue, that’ll be my loss.[/quote]
I will give you this – if you still don?t get it and you are indeed interested in learning, it will be your choice to pick up a few books and understand what I mean and you will be able to answer the questions yourself:
The purpose of multiple regression (the term was first used by Pearson, 1908) is to learn more about the relationship between several independent or predictor variables and a dependent or criterion variable.
In this case, the criterion variable is “Party Affiliation”.
The proposed predictor variables – Race, Church attendance, Gender, Income, Union HH and Education – ARE NOT INDEPENDENT VARIABLES. They have been shown to be correlated. Hence, multiple regression analysis CANNOT BE USED with these predictor variables. AT ALL. NEVER. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Proving causality or influence (the power or capacity of causing an effect) is completely different from showing correlation, and as soon as you have multiple correlated variables in play, proving any causality or singling out each of the variables as having more or less influence is in fact impossible.
Hence, the first study is fundamentaly bogus.
With regards to the second study, the reason my wife says it is non random is from looking at the N column (rightmost). If you look at N for each of the groups, you’ll see what I mean.
Namely, there’s a disproportionately low amount (in comparison to the general population) of Liberals; of the people polled, 7,086 were conservative, 7,478 were moderate and only 3,595 where liberal (the sum of these is less than the total N on top, so I assume 959 “didn’t know” or changed views over the course of the years)!
That’s the very definition of a biased sample – if the study was truly representative of the General Population, it should be, even, assuming the least liberal of all surveys I could find, about 25% liberal (4,780), 30% moderate (5,735) and 37% conservative (7,074). So the sample is clearly skewed against liberals – liberals are EXTREMELY under-represented in favor of moderates, in comparison to the general population.
So the second study used a biased sample, clearly.
[quote]hspder wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Capital gains which her first hubby earned! Those two leeches couldn’t run a gd vegetable stand between them.
… so are you saying that you agree with me that Capital Gains and Dividends Tax should be increased back?
[/quote]
Nope. The fortune was earned by a productive man. It is HIS. If he chose to leave it to her (rolls eyes), that is his right and we must respect that.
Doc, in all honesty, I think you need to take a sabbatical and work in a real job for a year. (I’m not trying to flame you at all.) I think you understand the ‘grand scheme of things’, but not the details. For example, you say how workers contribute way more than a capitalist. Did it occur to you that those workers would probably be digging for roots in the forest and wearing animal skins but for the capitalists? The workers owe most of what they have to the capitalists, the ones who organise and make the whole thing go.
Or think of a ship. The captain could probably do most of the lower level jobs on the ship. Could most of the sailors so similarly captain the vessel? Not likely.
In summary, compared to the gifts that businessmen have bestowed upon us, from the furnace that heats your home, to the TV you watch, to the car you drive, and all the other things we take for granted, the capitalists are actually severely underpaid. Workers exploit capitalists, not the other way around.
HH
[quote]hspder wrote:
doogie wrote:
I really do want to carry on the conversation and I really am interested in all the questions that follow. I would like to learn more about this. I took a political analysis course in undergrad and a “statistics for morons” graduate course, but that’s the extent of my understanding of statistics and polling. If you are too offended to continue, that’ll be my loss.
I will give you this – if you still don?t get it and you are indeed interested in learning, it will be your choice to pick up a few books and understand what I mean and you will be able to answer the questions yourself:
The purpose of multiple regression (the term was first used by Pearson, 1908) is to learn more about the relationship between several independent or predictor variables and a dependent or criterion variable.
In this case, the criterion variable is “Party Affiliation”.
The proposed predictor variables – Race, Church attendance, Gender, Income, Union HH and Education – ARE NOT INDEPENDENT VARIABLES. They have been shown to be correlated. Hence, multiple regression analysis CANNOT BE USED with these predictor variables. AT ALL. NEVER. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Proving causality or influence (the power or capacity of causing an effect) is completely different from showing correlation, and as soon as you have multiple correlated variables in play, proving any causality or singling out each of the variables as having more or less influence is in fact impossible.
Hence, the first study is fundamentaly bogus.
With regards to the second study, the reason my wife says it is non random is from looking at the N column (rightmost). If you look at N for each of the groups, you’ll see what I mean.
Namely, there’s a disproportionately low amount (in comparison to the general population) of Liberals; of the people polled, 7,086 were conservative, 7,478 were moderate and only 3,595 where liberal (the sum of these is less than the total N on top, so I assume 959 “didn’t know” or changed views over the course of the years)!
That’s the very definition of a biased sample – if the study was truly representative of the General Population, it should be, even, assuming the least liberal of all surveys I could find, about 25% liberal (4,780), 30% moderate (5,735) and 37% conservative (7,074). So the sample is clearly skewed against liberals – liberals are EXTREMELY under-represented in favor of moderates, in comparison to the general population.
So the second study used a biased sample, clearly.
[/quote]
Does it say in the study that each individual had an equally likely chance of being in the study? If so, then everything you wrote above is bogus.
Also, unless a population is small, you cannot truly know the facts you stated about a ‘general population’. You, in fact, are relying upon another set of statistics and samples (not a population).
HH
[quote]hspder wrote:
In this case, the criterion variable is “Party Affiliation”.
The proposed predictor variables – Race, Church attendance, Gender, Income, Union HH and Education – ARE NOT INDEPENDENT VARIABLES. They have been shown to be correlated. Hence, multiple regression analysis CANNOT BE USED with these predictor variables. AT ALL. NEVER. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Proving causality or influence (the power or capacity of causing an effect) is completely different from showing correlation, and as soon as you have multiple correlated variables in play, proving any causality or singling out each of the variables as having more or less influence is in fact impossible.
Hence, the first study is fundamentaly bogus.
[/quote]
Thanks for responding. I understand your point above completely, now that I’ve had time to think about it. There are two things I’d like to address here.
Multiple Regression Analysis
As I said, it’s been years since I really dealt with this stuff at all (and I did so on a very basic level). When we ran polls we had a software program that we poured the data into and it spit everything out for us, so I never really dug into the math/science/theory of it all.
I thought things like ridge regression and principal components analysis were variants of multiple regression analysis that handled these kinds of problems. Am I completely off with this? I’m trying to figure out where to start with the aspects of statistics that actually interest me so I can order some books.
THE PEW STUDY ABOUT PARTY AFFILIATION
http://people-press.org/commentary/display.php3?AnalysisID=114
I posted the study and wrote to FightinIrish, “Race is the strongest determining factor in party affiliation, followed by church attend., gender, income, union household, and finally education at the bottom.” That was clearly my mistake.
The title of the chart (above) is “Factors Influencing Party Identification.” I guess we agree that each of those things (race, church attendance, gender, income, union household, and education) all do have SOME influence on party id? I mispresented that as saying the chart was showing the strength of causation of those factors, but it doesn’t say that.
At the bottom of the chart it says, “association with party identification.”
Assuming that is true, would multiple regression analysis let you find the correlation of each independent variable with party affiliation?
I really wish I would have hung onto those books.
[quote]
With regards to the second study, the reason my wife says it is non random is from looking at the N column (rightmost). If you look at N for each of the groups, you’ll see what I mean. [/quote]
That column says “minimum N”. I thought that meant it is the minimum number of samples that occurred in that row (category) during one of the the three years the surveys was conducted. For instance, the year with the least number of total samples had 19,118. The year with the least number of liberals had 3,595.
[quote]
Namely, there’s a disproportionately low amount (in comparison to the general population) of Liberals; of the people polled, 7,086 were conservative, 7,478 were moderate and only 3,595 where liberal (the sum of these is less than the total N on top, so I assume 959 “didn’t know” or changed views over the course of the years)! [/quote]
Again, I take that to mean the year with the least amount of liberals had 3,595.
You didn’t provide even a singe survey to validate your assertion that the least liberal of the surveys was 25% liberal. Considering you have no qualms about putting forth CNN exit polls as evidence for your points, it would be more than fair to ask to see those surveys.
If it is true that that the least liberal survey you could find was 25%, you should try again.
EVERY survey I found from the same time period as those in Pew study were below 25%.
This article from 2004 includes this:
[quote]
…a June Wall Street Journal analysis that "[The] proportion of Americans calling themselves “liberal” edged up to 21 percent in [ pollster Stan] Greenberg’s May poll from 16 percent a month earlier. Self-identified “conservatives” dropped to 37 percent from 41 percent[/quote]:
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:6E801ZG3PXQJ:www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp%3Fc%3DbiJRJ8OVF%26b%3D131981+percentage+of+americans+who+are+liberal&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=9&client=firefox-a
21% liberal is within 3% of the Pew study’s 18%. This poll was taken at a time when the percentage of conservatives had dropped from 41% to 37% since the previous months poll–providing a plausible explanation for the slightly higher percentage of liberals in this poll compared to the Pew study. Further, 37% is also the percentage of conservatives in the Pew study.
This article from 2004 includes this:
Compare these year by year findings to the Pew studies overall results (in parenthesis).
2000
Liberal 20% (18%)
Moderate 42% (39%)
Conservative 37% (37%)
2001
Liberal 19% (18%)
Moderate 40% (39%)
Conservative 38% (37%)
2002
Liberal 19% (18%)
Moderate 39% (39%)
Conservative 38% (37%)
Since you trust exit polls, this article includes one:
[quote]
According to the network exit polls, 21 percent of the voters who cast ballots in 2004 called themselves liberal, 34 percent said they were conservative and 45 percent called themselves moderate:[/quote]
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10438
There are more if you want them, but I think the more I provide the more clear it will become that you only question the Pew study because you don’t like it’s findings.
[quote]harris447 wrote:
ZEB wrote:
harris447 wrote:
As opposed to self-made man Dubya?
C’mon, you’re smarter than this at least.
What year did YOU have display the intestinal fortitude to give up a debilitating habit such as alcohol?
What year did YOU graduate from Harvard?
What year did YOU graduate from YALE?
What year did you get elected as Governor of Texas?
What year did YOU get reelected as Governor of Texas?
What year did YOU get elected President of the United States?
What year did YOU get reelected President of the United States?
MANY are born into wealth and power. Few rise to the occasion the way GW has.
Enough with your hate…
My daddy did’t get me into Yale or Harvard. I got a C average at a different school in Boston.[/quote]
But many “Daddys” who could afford to send their kids, and whose kids were very bright did not do what GW did!
Again, Harvard, Yale, two terms as gov. two terms as President.
A HUGE SUCCESS!
Thank you for surrendering your point so early. 
I never said that he didn’t “trade on his name.” What I said was that there were other sons of rich, powerful politically popular people who did not achieve what GW did!
You’ll really have to learn to read better there teach!
That’s YOUR opinion.
But, even if it were true, Bush is still a two term President!
How many kids of the rich and (politically) powerful grow up to become a two term President?
He still had to work for it!
No on annointed him.
You must be smarter than this…
As just one example, no one campaigned in his place working 16 to 20 hours per day every day in order to gain his parties nomination.
[quote]The ‘hatred’ bullshit is as see-through as used neutrogena.
[/quote]
I agree, you can’t mask your hatred of Bush, God, or anything else that does not fit your little world.
Sorry for you…Really!
[quote]hspder wrote:
ZEB wrote:
What year did YOU display the intestinal fortitude to give up a debilitating habit such as alcohol?
OMG! I don’t know what’s funniest, your Freudian spelling mistake or the way you’re playing him as a “hero” of alcoholism.
ZEB, I can safely say that as soon as you learn to spell, you definitely have a chance as the next White House Press Secretary.
Your innate talent for spin is off the chart. Get some writing classes and you’ll be set for life in Washington.
[/quote]
Hey Prof, when you have to attack the spelling you’ve lost the argument!
LOL
Go back to your Ivory tower where you are loved appreciated and most importantly they HAVE to listen to your liberal tripe!
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Doc, in all honesty, I think you need to take a sabbatical and work in a real job for a year. [/quote]
Oh yea!
It ought to be a requirement for all of those who become lost in the university system.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Did it occur to you that those workers would probably be digging for roots in the forest and wearing animal skins but for the capitalists? The workers owe most of what they have to the capitalists, the ones who organise and make the whole thing go.
Or think of a ship. The captain could probably do most of the lower level jobs on the ship. Could most of the sailors so similarly captain the vessel? Not likely.
In summary, compared to the gifts that businessmen have bestowed upon us, from the furnace that heats your home, to the TV you watch, to the car you drive, and all the other things we take for granted, the capitalists are actually severely underpaid. Workers exploit capitalists, not the other way around.
HH
[/quote]
Very nice, good stuff.
Employees are Tools which are needed by whomever put forth the initiative and capitol to start a business. I don’t know of someone starting a business to provide jobs. If the company needs employees to run the business, so be it.
If GM or Ford could build cars tomorrow without any people, they’d do it in a second.Businesses are there for PROFIT, nothing else.
I am however starting to consider if some services (such as health care) are best served without a profit motive. Possibly at the ripe old age of 31 I’m starting to soften up or whatever. I’m just starting to think about which services would be better run with a profit motive and which ones wouldn’t. I think that emergency services, including ambulance service, are one of these services; I also would ad to this health care. On this issue I realize that I differ from alot of my republican cohorts but oh well.
I guess that makes me somewhat of a bad republican ;-}
[quote]doogie wrote:
Assuming that is true, would multiple regression analysis let you find the correlation of each independent variable with party affiliation?[/quote]
No. THEY (Race, Education, etc.) ARE NOT INDEPENDENT VARIABLES.
[quote]doogie wrote:
There are more if you want them, but I think the more I provide the more clear it will become that you only question the Pew study because you don’t like it’s findings.[/quote]
You are welcome to think whatever you like. I really do not have more time to spend arguing with you…
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Or think of a ship. The captain could probably do most of the lower level jobs on the ship. Could most of the sailors so similarly captain the vessel? Not likely.[/quote]
That is a completely absurd argument.
First, the captain, nowadays, rarely is the owner of the ship.
Second, I never said that the “captain” shouldn’t earn more. What I’m saying is that s/he shouldn’t earn 100x more, because nobody’s work is worth 100x more than somebody else’s. I’ve said before I AM comfortable with companies – like Costco – where the Founder’s salary is capped at 16x the lowest salary.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
In summary, compared to the gifts that businessmen have bestowed upon us, from the furnace that heats your home, to the TV you watch, to the car you drive, and all the other things we take for granted, the capitalists are actually severely underpaid. Workers exploit capitalists, not the other way around.[/quote]
I’m sorry if that offends you, but I have no nice way of putting this: that is the most absurd thing I’ve read in a long time.
As I’ve said before, business owners (what you are calling “Capitalists”) are important in Capitalism – but the fact remains that not only they are far from the most important thing, they are, in fact, not completely necessary.
Look up “co-op”.
E.g.:
and, of course:
"
Labor can and will become its own employer through co-operative association.
– Leland Stanford
"
(yes, that Stanford)
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Or think of a ship. The captain could probably do most of the lower level jobs on the ship. Could most of the sailors so similarly captain the vessel? Not likely.[/quote]
Excellent Point!
(Do a “Save Target As…” on the chart and download it to your computer and open it there if you want to see it better)
[quote]hspder wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Or think of a ship. The captain could probably do most of the lower level jobs on the ship. Could most of the sailors so similarly captain the vessel? Not likely.
That is a completely absurd argument.
First, the captain, nowadays, rarely is the owner of the ship.
Second, I never said that the “captain” shouldn’t earn more. What I’m saying is that s/he shouldn’t earn 100x more, because nobody’s work is worth 100x more than somebody else’s. I’ve said before I AM comfortable with companies – like Costco – where the Founder’s salary is capped at 16x the lowest salary.
Headhunter wrote:
In summary, compared to the gifts that businessmen have bestowed upon us, from the furnace that heats your home, to the TV you watch, to the car you drive, and all the other things we take for granted, the capitalists are actually severely underpaid. Workers exploit capitalists, not the other way around.
I’m sorry if that offends you, but I have no nice way of putting this: that is the most absurd thing I’ve read in a long time.
As I’ve said before, business owners (what you are calling “Capitalists”) are important in Capitalism – but the fact remains that not only they are far from the most important thing, they are, in fact, not completely necessary.
Look up “co-op”.
E.g.:
and, of course:
"
Labor can and will become its own employer through co-operative association.
– Leland Stanford
"
(yes, that Stanford)
[/quote]
Good morning, Doc!
Hey, I’m a Viking, we don’t offend easily.
Didn’t the Soviets have ‘co-ops’? They killed all the kulaks and declared “You are all now in a collective!” Russia went from being a food exporter to rank starvation.
It always amazes me how brilliant men will hold on to some evil idea, especially after its been tried over and over again and failed. The people of North Korea, for example, who have to eat boiled bark off of trees, have probably had enough of ‘co-ops’ to last a good long time.
Maybe you can explain it, Doc. What is the fascination that libs at universitites have with Marxism and other such vile crap? Is it some sort of manifest hatred of humanity?
HH
Oh, and with regards to the ship example: if the guy who mops floors is put in charge and runs your ship into an iceberg, you might have been happier to pay a real captain 100x more to be in charge of the vessel.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Maybe you can explain it, Doc. What is the fascination that libs at universitites have with Marxism and other such vile crap? Is it some sort of manifest hatred of humanity?
Oh, and with regards to the ship example: if the guy who mops floors is put in charge and runs your ship into an iceberg, you might have been happier to pay a real captain 100x more to be in charge of the vessel. :)[/quote]
You’re so completely off-base you’re not even in the same Universe…
As I said multiple times, I’m no Bolshevik. I am just tired of seeing people have such contempt for the working class while elevating business owners to God-like status.
And I am the elitist?
If it weren’t for “elitist liberals” like Stanford you would probably be now working 14 hours a day in some factory making barely enough to put food on your family’s plate every day. The difference between you and us is that while you are perfectly OK with that, because you do believe some people deserve to live like that, us “elitist liberals” believe no human being deserves such fate.
"
Leland Stanford University was one of the most richly endowed, most architecturally beautiful, and best equipped institutions of learning in the world. Mrs. Jane Stanford, widow of the school’s founder, in 1901 gave it outright $30,000,000 ? $18,000,000 in gilt edged bonds and securities and $12,000,000 in an aggregate of 100,000 acres of land in twenty-six counties in California. This, with what the university had received from Leland Stanford himself, made its endowment the enormous sum of $34,000,000 besides its original capital, and after Mrs. Stanford’s tragic murder this was raised to $36,000,000.
In a way the real founder of the university was a young boy, Leland Stanford, Jr. On his death bed he was asked by his parents what he would like them to do with the vast fortune which would have been his had he lived. He replied he would like them to found a great university where young men and women without means could get an education, “for,” he added, “that is what I intended all along to do before I knew I was going to die.”
The dying wish was carried out.
"
Hate to tell you this doc, but the vast majority of the working class have about as much ambition as a sack of potatoes. The driving force behind them is the capitalist class.
Ever been to a town where the main employer has left? The energy is gone and the people sit around in the remaining businesses (bars and strip joints) bitching about how what an awful world it is, how the world owes them a living, and on and on.
Sidenote: You’re a demand-side economist, right? Hmmm…if workers produce a great deal, yet they work 14 hour days at subsistence pay, who’ll buy all the items produced?
Praise the workers? LOL!!!
HH
