"Doug Miller" wrote in message
m...
In article , "xrongor"
wrote:
doug, the information provided in that article means exactly one
thing.
as
measured by the percent of their goal, the rate is falling.

Wrong -- it doesn't mean a damn thing, because it's comparing apples
and
oranges. It doesn't state what the goal is this year, or what it was
last
year, so any comparison of the rates of meeting those goals is
completely
without meaning at all. It doesn't measure anything, and it doesn't
mean
anything. Nothing. You can draw _no_ conclusions at all, because the
data
is
incomplete.


can we agree that this is the crux of the disagreement? that you think
that
my comparing the %ages of their goal from two different years means
absolutely nothing and i think it means that the percentage of their goal
is
falling? all else seems to come from this from what i can tell...

Pretty close, anyway...

if not, what is the crux of the issue?

If I might put it in a nutshell, the crux of the issue is your failure to
comprehend that the comparison is meaningless, because the crucial data
required to put it in context is missing.

im trying to get this really clear. you are saying my comparison of the two
years is meaningless?

the article gives you the percent of their goal for two different years. we
agree on this? lets not get into what it means yet, just that we can agree
that the article provides those numbers. can we do that?

lets replace the sentence % of their goal with the word apple since you've
accused me of comparing apples to oranges. you got it? the phrase "% of
their goal" shall be replaced by the word 'apple'. so to rephrase, the
article gives you the apple for one year, and gives you the apple for the
next year, and you cant say that the apple has gone down or is falling?

because that is the only claim i made. the PERCENT is falling, not actual
numbers.

randy