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Keyser Soze

On 8/14/16 10:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 22:03:03 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:

On 8/14/16 8:20 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 19:57:21 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:

You're really overgeneralizing in your first sentence. How many
undergrad, grad, and post-grad stats courses have you taken?

I have a whole lot of training in database analysis along with a few
decades of actual experience running numbers that my company was
betting millions on. Sitting in a room listening to some old fart
telling me how they did things with paper records, pencils and
mechanical calculators does not interest me.

My lovely wife took several stats courses as an undergrad, many more as
a grad student, and even more as a doctoral student. The latter were
taught by university math professors and held at the College of
Engineering. Pretty heavy math and studies in interpretation, database
analysis and more. I don't recall her mentioning paper records, pencils,
and calculators. She did use a couple of computer stats courses, though.
Upon completing her doctoral course work, she had to take and pass a
three day written examination that included doctoral level statistical
work and after that, a day of oral exam by a handful of professors,
including two from another institution and I believe one of those guys
was a math professor.

Now, me, I can do some math, but anything beyond really simple stats is
beyond my knowledge and probably ability.

What does that have to do with cooking the books on the unemployment
rate? Is it just the way they learn how to rationalize a bogus number?

I was commenting on your "lot of training."