Great mathematical conclusions of our time

[davywavy]

I see that the National Union of Journalists are up in arms over the shocking statistic that 50% of people earn less than the average wage.

I can only conclude that a qualification in basic maths is not a requirement for becoming a Union activist these days. In fact, in the light of the above evidence I suspect that such a qualification would be a serious handicap.

Comments

[budgie-uk.livejournal.com]

funny... but inaccurate. What they're saying - it appears - is that half of all UK journalists earn less than the average wage for all employees in the UK, and that three-quarters earn less than the average professional wage.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

So if you were to take a sample of the population, you wouldn't expect 50% of the sample to earn less than half the average wage?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grimtales_/]

Ah, but would you expect 50% of the Royal family to be recieving less than the average wage?

Journalism is, rightly or wrongly, seen as an educated profession that should command a reasonable wage.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Yes, obviously I would as the royal family are not in waged employment (except the ones in the army, where they qualify for the standard pay scale for their rank).

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grimtales_/]

I anticipated that you might dive into a phone booth and don your Captain Pedantic costume, so consider another sample - high court judges - to address rather than avoid the point.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Ah, resorting to cheap jibes of pedantry in an attempt to cover yourself against my ability to strike easily through your kneejerk arguments, eh?
Still, it got you thinking, which I should at leaast be pleased with.
You'll see in other threads that we're covering this elsewhere I've already clarified this to a sampling which covers all levels of ability and seniority (I think journos are required to join the NUJ to get accreditied, but I may be wrong).

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grimtales_/]

Oh I agree they're probably being twonks, but the flaw in their argument isn't the facile one you initially (though humorously) stated.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

The difference being, of course, that FD is a stated job title, and there's no union representing that single title.
However, it is reasonable to assume that the NUJ represents people from the top to teh bottom of both ability and seniority (indeed, I think Journos have to join to get accreditation? I may be wrong) and so the Cat up Tree correspondent for the local rag is represented in the sample just as is the horrendously overpaid Polly Toynbee.

[budgie-uk.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but the same applies to Financial Directors, some of whom (to my cretain knowledge) earn £35k a year, with others earning more than ten times that amount.

Every profession or trade (replace FD with 'accountant', and bingo, I'm a member of ACCA, one of the trade bodies for accountants) has people at the top and bottom of ability and seniority.

However, my point was that you're saying that the stupid journalist didn't realise that you're always going to get 50% above and 50% below "the average". That's not the case if you're talking about two different populations.

You could accurately say it's accurate that, say, "50% of people who blog post more often than the average person who blog". But equally accurate could be "70% of people on livejournal post more often than the average person who blogs".

[budgie-uk.livejournal.com]

Of course... but suppose I were to say "90% of financial directors earn more than the average wage for the UK population..."

That's probably true, becaue it's two different populations:

(1) Financial Directors
(2) the entire UK workforce

But it doesn't make sense to say that 90% earn more than the average, does it? Well, yes it does... because you're comparing chalk and cheese.

99.27% of grapes are smaller than the average size of fruits, etc.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

No, I'd expect approximately 50% of a random sample to earn less than the median wage.

Given the way I'd expect salary curves to be shaped, I don't believe I'd be able to say a great deal about the mean without knowing more.

A meaningful statistic would be to compare journalists salaries with other professions that have similar training and qualification requirements.

I'd also prefer to see the figures broken down by sector as the requirements for working for, say, The People, would be much higher than those working for the Pimblington Free Herald.

In fact, stuff that. Journalists should deal with the fact that the market determines the going rate for their services, just like the rest of us have to.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You mean unions should acknowledge the real world?

That's crazy talk!

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this with regard to your statement that 50% of people are below average intelligence. I believe it to be flawed.

What you're saying only has meaning for the median -- the average that occurs in the middle of a range of numbers. For the mean (what people generally refer to as an average) and the mode, what your saying is misleading.


If nine people got given £10 and one person got given £1000, then on mode and median average, everyone got a tenner, but by the mean, everyone got £109. 90% of people thus got less than the average payout. See?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do see that, although it seems that the NUJ doesn't. In the same way theat they draw aggrieved comparisons between the wages of the average journo and teacher. The temptation to write and say "That's because society values teachers more than you, you oafs" is very strong.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Particularly as teachers are underpaid. Weird.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have a solution for that.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Dude, paying for immoral/illegal activity is your solution to everything!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Not true - paying people for moral activity is my solution.
People react well when behaviours are positively reinforced, and whether it be green taxes instead of plain old income taxes or a fee-based caning system for naughty children, I'd rather behaviour was modelled by puinishments being avoidable and rewards being easily reached, than by the ridiculous one-size fits all 'tell people what to do and then act all surprised when they don't act like that for no immediate reward' system we have now.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, quite. since no-one pays to be a journalist, the pay distribution about the mean isn't normal. Pretty much all data sets are like this. What is funny, is that journalists are using the fact that they are paid the national average wage (or seem to be, from my reading of the article) to justify being paid more. No mention of merit, or supply & demand, just badly presented statistics.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Since when have unions campaigned for more money on the basis of merit?

[(Anonymous)]

Good point, well made.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

This is why the RMT has to resort to threats of screwing up the london economy to get their way with the Underground - not even they could keep a straight face if they tried claiming that their members deserved more cash due to merit or hard work.

[(Anonymous)]

Indeed. As I understand you have wisely observed yourself, those 'worthless imbecillic donkeypunchers' would probably starve if forced to tout their inferior malodorous service in an open market, hence the 'congestion charge' to twist the market sufficiently to make their inferior overpriced urine-soaked jalopies less uncompetetive, in comparison.

Of course, our 'Four legs good, two legs better' masters still swan round in their Ukrainian hooker strewn Daimlers.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Ken is doubling the cost of underground fares in January.
Apparently he things that there are far too many tourists in London and they make the place untidy, so he hopes to encourage them to go elsewhere.

[(Anonymous)]

And not because the quality of the service has doubled?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Today is the only day I have used the Underground this week that it hasn't been in some way broken, delayed, or otherwise massively delayed my journey.

[(Anonymous)]

You should write and congratulate them.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Oh. Oh. Hahahhahahah.

[civi.livejournal.com]

That's awesome.
It seems they think that journos are mad eof platinum encrusted diamond gold alloys and should thereofre ALL be above the average wage barrier.
Thus pushing up the avergae wage barrier... and causing more problems.

They then go on to compare their wages to teachers and police, and show the changes over the past 20years.
They seem to think that they are just as important and relevant as teachers and police as they were 20years ago.
What a pile of misguided tossers. Journalists vs Teachers+Police. One side of this equation is going to educate our yound and keep us safe fomr criminals. The other side is going to manipuate and exploit people to sell newspapers/magazines and to achieve corporate agendas.

Yeah.

Screw journalists, I'm sure 80% of them still make more than me. They should be happy we don't give them the back of our hand for being stupid and make them work in the mill and down the pit.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

So if we raise what they get paid then the average wage goes up, so we have to pay them more...and more...and more...
Hurrah for unbridled pay rises! That'd be good for the economy!

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, some hefty inflation would (apart from causing hideous pain for anyone with a mortgage) not be such a bad thing.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Not if it were limited solely to the memebrs of the NUJ, which appeasr to be what they want.

[(Anonymous)]

No, but a bit of real economic growth, as opposed to stagnation hidden by rising public debt funded governmental expansion, would push interest rates to more reasonable historic levels, like 6% say, whilst also providing for the growth in real earnings people need to actually buy or rent somewhere to live.

Of course, we may have to temper our love of cheap chinese imports. I find it ironic that as Britain prepares to celebrate, quite rightly, the abolition of slavery, we are giving the same practice the quiet nod to keep the cost of our trainers & cd players down.

[colin-boyle.livejournal.com]

Inflation is actually good for people with mortgages and salaries, because the mortgage is a fixed sum and salaries tend to increase with inflation, so the relative size of the mortgage decreases.

Inflation is generally bad for people with savings for the same reasons.

[(Anonymous)]

The MPC use interest rates to control inflation. Apart from that, yes, the hyper inflation of the 70's made property debt affordable very quickly

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Of course they could be confusing average with mean, median or mode.

I think David Blunkett once made a speech where he said he wanted all children to be better than average. Of course, I could be making it up.

Given that some journalists must get paid vast sums (editors, for instance), that would skew the mean, so one might expect more than 50% of journalists to be paid below average.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Polly Toynbee once ran an opinion piece in which she said that in her opinion, what every gets paid should be a matter of public record. In her opinion, this would reduce wage disparity.
Private Eye promptly got in touch with her and asked how much she got paid, to which Polly told them where to go.

Laugh? I could ahve cried.