Numb and Number

"Figures don't lie, but liars do figure." -- Mark Twain

   Math is a language. Like any language, it tells stories, and as with users of  any language, some are better at telling stories than others.
   Just as selective fact-finding can create misleading stories, selective data-picking can bring misleading conclusions.

   Pharmaceutical companies have long been criticized for not publishing research studies that do not support their preconceived notions of how effective a new drug will be. Instead, they bury the results of studies that don't endorse the product.
   That's a form of selective data-picking.

   Politicians hire sympathetic survey firms who contact only people of similar views, so results are skewed toward what the client wants. And sometimes the survey population is not diverse enough to yield accurate results. A classic example is the Chicago newspaper headline in 1948: "Dewey Defeats Truman."
   At the time, the survey was conducted by telephone. However, most households with telephones then were middle class or up, whose members more likely to vote Republican. Working class Democrats, however, did not have telephones, and were more likely to vote in the evening, after the workday ended.
   Market penetration by the telephone industry was far lower than today, when virtually every household in America has a telephone, even as landline phone use has dipped with the advent of mobile devices. In 1985, for example, only 0.1 percent of American households had a cellphone. Now, it's well over 90 percent, and many households have one for each family member.

   With that as background, consider some numbers and the stories they tell, often contradicting the laments by political types anxious to make the opposition look bad.
   The U.S. Census Bureau reported today that tax revenues for state and local governments increased 7.2 percent in the second quarter compared to a year ago, marking the 15th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. Tax revenue for the quarter totaled $382.2 billion, the bureau said, compared to $356.7 billion for the second quarter of 2012.
   Property tax revenue has leveled off, and brought in $91.9 billion, the bureau said, noting that this was not statistically different from the $88.5 billion a year earlier.
   Income tax revenue for states and municipalities continued to grow, up 18.2 percent, and sales and receipts taxes rose 4.2 percent, while corporate income tax revenue increased by 14.5 percent.

   What do these numbers mean? Add them to earlier data recently released, and we need to question whether the nation's economy is still in the tank, as some maintain.
   Corporations and the top 10 percent of households are doing well, and the unemployment rate is slowly sliding, even though the wealth of the lowest 40 percent of earners is lower than it was five years ago.
   Granted, there are more people eligible for food stamps, but that's because prices have outpaced their income growth.
   
   To use an accountant's favorite phrase to conclude the story, here's the bottom line: Look at the overall picture that the numbers display, and think of it like looking at a pointilist painting. Get too close, and the myriad of points is confusing. Further away, you can see a portrait. And that has to be shown to others, who will decide whether they and the nation are better off than they were five years ago.