Aug. 05 2009

slantback:

Unless you add some context to the percentage, there is no meaning. (via Statistics Without Context — Simple Complexity)

please keep this in mind.

Aug. 15 2008

You're worth 10.199004 % less than you were a year ago

peterwknox:

From: EPA Says Life Is Worth Less - washingtonpost.com

Last week, it was revealed that an Environmental Protection Agency office had lowered its official estimate of life’s value, from about $8.04 million to about $7.22 million. That decision has put a spotlight on the concept of the “Value of a Statistical Life,” in which the Washington bureaucracy takes on a question usually left to preachers and poets.

This value is routinely calculated by several agencies, each putting its own dollar figure on the worth of life — not any particular person’s life, just that of a generic American. The figure is then used to judge whether potentially lifesaving policy measures are really worth the cost.