In article , "xrongor" wrote:

the variable i am referring to is not unknown. the variable reffered to in
this statement is the % of their goal. we know that variable in both
situations and it went down from one year to the next.

But without knowing what the goals for the two years are, the change in
percentage is utterly meaningless.

just to be clear dave, are you disagreeing with the statement 'the
percentage of their enlistment goal has gone down?
are you claiming that even if it did 'go down' that falling is an inaccurate
term?

He's claiming that absolutely no meaningful inferences can be drawn from that
datum, because the information is grossly incomplete.

Example: suppose that last year, the goal was to have 50K soldiers re-enlist,
and actual re-enlistment was 53 K; now suppose that this year, the goal is
75K, and actual is 72K. Although actual re-enlistment *rose* by 36%,
the "percent of goal" declined from 106% to 96% -- which illustrates the
reason that comparing percentages of different values is meaningless, without
knowing the actual values.

i am not claiming this means more or less actual people. never did.

But you continue to argue as though it must mean *something* when, in the
absence of any additionaly information, it is in fact utterly meaningless.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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