Introduction
To put the the problems facing Portugal into perspective it is interesting to look at some statistics. Of course all statistics and even the numbers which the statistics are based on should be looked at with skepticism. Let me give you a recent example from Denmark. Denmark, generally speaking, is probably one of the countries in the world where you can trust the numbers the most. The bureaucrats are more honest and dedicated (and irritating) than most places. A trait of Northern Europe in general. Also Denmark is a very small country with a, until recently, extremely homogeneous population.
But even then numbers are manipulated for political reasons. Let us take an example. Denmark has an official unemployment rate of 6.2% corresponding to 163300 unemployed. Not bad at all. A long time ago I studied economics and a 5% unemployment rate was considered the "idle" unemployment rate of a country with a very healthy economy. For example there will always be some people between jobs - they will count as unemployed for a short while.
Unfortunately, that is not the whole Danish story. Danish politicians are probably not more honest than the same race (politicians are per definition no longer human) everywhere else.
In Denmark there are 134000 people receiving unemployment benefits on the lowest level (most receive from the unions, the unions receive from the state, the state regulates via 28000 or so rules, the world's largest book) Of those only 33000 count as unemployed. I wish maths were that easy when I was a kid. Now you can just make up numbers as you feel like. You see, the remaining 91000 are considered unemployable for a number of reasons. If you are not a politician, you would still consider them unemployed and the corrected and more real number of unemployed in Denmark would be 9.8%. This is just one group not counted as unemployed. There are more and the final number is quite certainly frightening.
One of the major problems of Greece has been the former Greek government's practice of actually falsifying statistics. I.e. making up their own numbers. Another is the absurd level of incompetence. (*)
This is one of the major reasons for the current Greek crisis and the reason it affects Europe. Without the false statistics, Greece would never have become a member of the euro, as they would not have qualified.
I consider that all countries present false numbers. Either on purpose, painted by politics, through incompetence or a combination of all three. So let us not trust the numbers, but just hope that when we compare them, we compare with other numbers doctored to a similar degree, so the comparison itself still has some value.
Finally, do never ever trust statistics presented by the mass media (or the voodoo sciences in general). Journalists as a rule are number blind, have never studied statistics, do not comprehend even a graph, not to mention probabilities and uncertainties. On top of that they will always manipulate the numbers to make the story. (to the idiot majority of journalists: The red block is not bigger than the blue block, based on a poll claiming 51% versus 49% when the uncertainty, the margin of error, of the poll is 3%). If you ever meet a journalists and he is boring you (fifty fifty chance). Just start about talking about statistics and the importance of understanding: means, averages, standard deviation, confidence intervals, regression analysis and other basics of statistics. The blank look in the eyes of the journalist is a joy to behold and suddenly he will find other company.
By the Numbers
The United Nations have presented their Human Development Report 2011. The numbers are here, the report here. It is not free, if you are a reader from the first world. But you have already paid for it, and you may now download the result for free.
Portugal is number 41 on the list. Well below all other countries in western Europe. Greece is number 31. Portugal is classified with countries from Eastern Europe, rich Arab countries and some South American countries.
Portugal is actually close to the cut off of for the premier league. At position 41 Portugal still belongs to 47 countries of "very high human development". At 48 we find Uruguay at "high human development". All in all 187 countries are on the list.
The list is basically based on three criteria. Gross national income (GNI) per capita, average number of years of schooling and life expectancy. This is certainly not the entirety of human development, but they are interesting elements to compare.
If you read further on (just jump the political correct tables on global warming and gender equality) then there are more interesting tables. One of them is table 3 concerning inequality. The position of Portugal would be lowered even further if it was considered as part of the human development index. As is stated somewhere else in the report:
Countries with less human development tend to have greater inequality in more dimensions—and thus larger losses in human development.
So true.
What gives Portugal the current relatively low position is the low average number of years of schooling. Perhaps the government should consider spending more on education and specifically on educating adults? I would claim that the countries with educated people tend to do better...
To end, a few more fun numbers.
Portugal is one of the countries in the world with most cars per inhabitant. According to one source the one with the second most number of mobile phones: 1,6 phones per inhabitant (another source claims only 1,2). I know one guy with three phones. So it must be true. Curiously only half or so of all Portuguese homes have Internet while 70 something percent of all homes have a computer. (see here for corroboration of some of the numbers, page 102-105)
Interestingly, when you compare with other countries in Southern Europe and specifically Greece, some tendencies are shared...
Concerning the low level of education it is not surprising to find Portugal as the Western Europe country where people read the least and all top TV programs are about football, soap operas, reality TV or contests.
Concerning the number of patents granted (page 172) - Portugal is one of the worst performing countries in Europe. I wonder if our politicians understand the concept high tech? On the other hand high tech does require education.
Portuguese are to some accounts the least happy people in Europe. This correlates nicely with the United Nations Human Development Report. I will make a claim as well. It also correlates with the quality of the Portuguese politicians and managers.
Let us hope the exception to the rule will somehow manage to save the country.
(*) In Greece, we now see examples of incompetence that are so far out, that they are indeed Greek tragic-comic. There is the example of an island of 35000 people with 750 people receiving their pension for being blind. We see this year that suddenly an additional 32000 more people have died than usually when the Greek state for the first time asked them to prove they were alive. Thirty something thousand dead/alive people are still missing. In fact Greece is the country in Europe, according to statistics, with most people alive above 100 years old.
Tax evasion is everywhere - "Only the stupid pay tax,” one eye surgeon told a Greek state radio. Eye surgeons are members of a profession earning up to 900000 euros a year.
There’s now a burgeoning market in camouflage swimming-pool covers, as the tax man is flying in helicopters above Greek villas trying to determine who lives above their declared income.
 |
| Hat tip: Jeff Mallett |
To put the the problems facing Portugal into perspective it is interesting to look at some statistics. Of course all statistics and even the numbers which the statistics are based on should be looked at with skepticism. Let me give you a recent example from Denmark. Denmark, generally speaking, is probably one of the countries in the world where you can trust the numbers the most. The bureaucrats are more honest and dedicated (and irritating) than most places. A trait of Northern Europe in general. Also Denmark is a very small country with a, until recently, extremely homogeneous population.
But even then numbers are manipulated for political reasons. Let us take an example. Denmark has an official unemployment rate of 6.2% corresponding to 163300 unemployed. Not bad at all. A long time ago I studied economics and a 5% unemployment rate was considered the "idle" unemployment rate of a country with a very healthy economy. For example there will always be some people between jobs - they will count as unemployed for a short while.
Unfortunately, that is not the whole Danish story. Danish politicians are probably not more honest than the same race (politicians are per definition no longer human) everywhere else.
In Denmark there are 134000 people receiving unemployment benefits on the lowest level (most receive from the unions, the unions receive from the state, the state regulates via 28000 or so rules, the world's largest book) Of those only 33000 count as unemployed. I wish maths were that easy when I was a kid. Now you can just make up numbers as you feel like. You see, the remaining 91000 are considered unemployable for a number of reasons. If you are not a politician, you would still consider them unemployed and the corrected and more real number of unemployed in Denmark would be 9.8%. This is just one group not counted as unemployed. There are more and the final number is quite certainly frightening.
One of the major problems of Greece has been the former Greek government's practice of actually falsifying statistics. I.e. making up their own numbers. Another is the absurd level of incompetence. (*)
This is one of the major reasons for the current Greek crisis and the reason it affects Europe. Without the false statistics, Greece would never have become a member of the euro, as they would not have qualified.
I consider that all countries present false numbers. Either on purpose, painted by politics, through incompetence or a combination of all three. So let us not trust the numbers, but just hope that when we compare them, we compare with other numbers doctored to a similar degree, so the comparison itself still has some value.
Finally, do never ever trust statistics presented by the mass media (or the voodoo sciences in general). Journalists as a rule are number blind, have never studied statistics, do not comprehend even a graph, not to mention probabilities and uncertainties. On top of that they will always manipulate the numbers to make the story. (to the idiot majority of journalists: The red block is not bigger than the blue block, based on a poll claiming 51% versus 49% when the uncertainty, the margin of error, of the poll is 3%). If you ever meet a journalists and he is boring you (fifty fifty chance). Just start about talking about statistics and the importance of understanding: means, averages, standard deviation, confidence intervals, regression analysis and other basics of statistics. The blank look in the eyes of the journalist is a joy to behold and suddenly he will find other company.
 |
| Hat tip: www.phdcomics.com, Jorge Cham |
By the Numbers
The United Nations have presented their Human Development Report 2011. The numbers are here, the report here. It is not free, if you are a reader from the first world. But you have already paid for it, and you may now download the result for free.
Portugal is number 41 on the list. Well below all other countries in western Europe. Greece is number 31. Portugal is classified with countries from Eastern Europe, rich Arab countries and some South American countries.
Portugal is actually close to the cut off of for the premier league. At position 41 Portugal still belongs to 47 countries of "very high human development". At 48 we find Uruguay at "high human development". All in all 187 countries are on the list.
The list is basically based on three criteria. Gross national income (GNI) per capita, average number of years of schooling and life expectancy. This is certainly not the entirety of human development, but they are interesting elements to compare.
If you read further on (just jump the political correct tables on global warming and gender equality) then there are more interesting tables. One of them is table 3 concerning inequality. The position of Portugal would be lowered even further if it was considered as part of the human development index. As is stated somewhere else in the report:
Countries with less human development tend to have greater inequality in more dimensions—and thus larger losses in human development.
So true.
What gives Portugal the current relatively low position is the low average number of years of schooling. Perhaps the government should consider spending more on education and specifically on educating adults? I would claim that the countries with educated people tend to do better...
To end, a few more fun numbers.
Portugal is one of the countries in the world with most cars per inhabitant. According to one source the one with the second most number of mobile phones: 1,6 phones per inhabitant (another source claims only 1,2). I know one guy with three phones. So it must be true. Curiously only half or so of all Portuguese homes have Internet while 70 something percent of all homes have a computer. (see here for corroboration of some of the numbers, page 102-105)
Interestingly, when you compare with other countries in Southern Europe and specifically Greece, some tendencies are shared...
Concerning the low level of education it is not surprising to find Portugal as the Western Europe country where people read the least and all top TV programs are about football, soap operas, reality TV or contests.
Concerning the number of patents granted (page 172) - Portugal is one of the worst performing countries in Europe. I wonder if our politicians understand the concept high tech? On the other hand high tech does require education.
Portuguese are to some accounts the least happy people in Europe. This correlates nicely with the United Nations Human Development Report. I will make a claim as well. It also correlates with the quality of the Portuguese politicians and managers.
Let us hope the exception to the rule will somehow manage to save the country.
(*) In Greece, we now see examples of incompetence that are so far out, that they are indeed Greek tragic-comic. There is the example of an island of 35000 people with 750 people receiving their pension for being blind. We see this year that suddenly an additional 32000 more people have died than usually when the Greek state for the first time asked them to prove they were alive. Thirty something thousand dead/alive people are still missing. In fact Greece is the country in Europe, according to statistics, with most people alive above 100 years old.
Tax evasion is everywhere - "Only the stupid pay tax,” one eye surgeon told a Greek state radio. Eye surgeons are members of a profession earning up to 900000 euros a year.
There’s now a burgeoning market in camouflage swimming-pool covers, as the tax man is flying in helicopters above Greek villas trying to determine who lives above their declared income.
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