Singapore!
2 examples.
Some observations from a fellow blogger when he read the local english newspaper he dubbed "Good News Times" on the topic of inflation. Actual statistics - The poor getting poorer and the rich still getting richer. Singapore styled statistics - The rate of poor getting poorer is not so much greater than the rate of the rich getting richer. Good news indeed.For the lowest quintile, the compounded price increase from Jan 2004 to June 2007 was 6.7%. On the other hand, for the highest quintile, compounded price increases amounted to 1.3% over the same period.
Readers may recall that the bottom 10% of households in the period 2000 - 2005 had virtually no income, and the next 10% saw household income fall 19.7%. See details in the article Income inequality widens markedly.
During that same 5-year period, the top decile (i.e. the top 10% block) saw their household income increase 14.8%, and the next richest decile gained 12.5%.Yet these are the ones who hardly saw inflation affect them.
You would think, wouldn't you, that a more appropriate headline and lead sentence would be something like "Bottom income groups suffer markedly more inflation than top ones"? Because really, that's what the table as a whole shows, doesn't it?
Instead the Good News Times squints into the 0.4 difference between the figures "1.1" and "0.7" on the last row of numbers in order to proclaim "Hail the benevolent king!"
Second case from our local political website
Minister: Lim Hng Kiang
Headline: GST’s up but not hawker prices
Paper: The Straits Times, Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Most hawkers have not raised their prices despite the 2% GST increased on 1 July 2007, said Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang.
The Department of Statistics surveyed 1,300 hawkers across the country and found that more than nine in 10 did not raise prices after the GST hike. Most businesses have not used the tax increase as an excuse to raise prices, said Mr Lim.
I noticed that quite a few hawkers increased their price before the GST hike while other raise prices by reducing the quality and quantity of their products, i.e. 1 less prawn for your hokkien mee etc. What about subsequent price increase in the future partly due to GST hike? And the issue of price increased by more than 2% after GST hike?
There are many ways to make use of statistics. These are just 2 simple examples.
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