and the messenger is not the message. O.K.?
A local blogger came in, and I realized he thought my last blog (about "dire" economic times) was about me. So when I asked him if I was clear that I am doing just fine, thank you, he shook his head. "It sounded like you're discouraged," he said.
In rereading the entry, I can see how he could've come to that conclusion. But I wasn't talking about my store, I was talking about the overall Bend economy.
Well, I suppose I am discouraged at not making even more of a profit, but the point is we are doing better than O.K. and better than fine.
But I don't want to brag about it, either. Because other people are indeed feeling the stress.
I guess no one else can know how close and hard it was for my store for so many years, so that this little economic conniption fit actually seems like a walk in the part in comparison.
I risk by talking about how bad something is, that other people will mistake the message for the messenger.
As I've always said, when I STOP talking about it, that's when I'm in trouble. Right now, I'm feeling, well, kind of smug for guessing right so far.
I always try to put a little message in there about how we're doing -- but I don't want to make too much of it, or it will sound too defensive or worse, gloating. So....
I'm going to keep posting my little messages, and hope you all can read between the lines.
**********
Apparently, Cascade Business News thinks we're undergoing a V shaped recovery. Since they got their graphs from Bloomberg, someone at Bloomberg thinks so too.
Thing about graphs, if you widen the time, or narrow the graphs, or squeeze the time or widen the graph, or make it taller, or with longer intervals or with larger or smaller numbers;
You can make a graph look like anything you want. Steep or flat, long or short, v shaped or u shaped.
They're fun, but they often don't really show anything but the maker's bias.
I don't know if there is a "Center for Graph Ethics" (or for that matter, a "Center for Statistics Ethics") but unless there is single standard for everyone, graphs can just be manipulated too much.
I repeat: You can use a graph to illustrate whatever point you want.
I suppose there are people using graphs to try to illustrate an objective truth, but that means you need to look closely either at the motivations of the graph-maker, or even more importantly, look at the graph itself and try to ascertain whether it is legit.
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3 comments:
Interesting how someone can think the recovery is V shaped, when most of the indicators are still in a negative direction, less negative, but still negative. The only thing that has bounced in a V is the stock market, but even there if you plot the trend line from the last two peaks since the market decline started we are still within that trend line in a secular bear market.
Yeah, even the word Recovery was a bit of a startlement.
I doubt anyone is actually making any kind of serious decision on the basis of something s/he read in Cascade Business News. It's a total Chamber of Commerce propaganda rag.
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