Monday, July 16, 2007

Money: GIGO

Ann Althouse notes that Madison, Wisconsin is almost Money magazine's 2007 "Best Place to Live" as nearby Middleton received top honors this year. If I were Ann, I might question the need to say "almost," because the rankings contain more than a few errors that call into question the accuracy of less easily verified information listed.

Davis, California's average high temperature during July is listed as being over 113° This is complete nonsense. The average high is 93.0° It seems that no one with a rudimentary understanding of the geography of the United States of America was involved with fact-checking this issue.

Weather is one thing, racial diversity is another. According to Money, their "Racial diversity index" accurately reflects the racial diversity of various cities. In their words, "100 is national average; higher numbers indicate greater diversity." According to Money, Baltimore, Maryland, is 760% more racially diverse than the nation is a whole. Baltimore? According to the Census Department, Baltimore is 64.34% Black, 31.63% white, 1.53% Asian, .32% Native American, and Hispanics/Latinos of any race make up just 1.70% of the population.

It seems to me that this so-called "Racial diversity index" is a code word for over-or under-representation of African Americans in a local population and has absolutely nothing to do with "racial diversity."

Here's hoping Money does a better job of performing due diligence when it covers stocks and mutual funds.

6 comments:

chuck b. said...

Oh, but it feels like 113! :)

Randy said...

It sure does at the moment, Chuck! BTW, they sent me an email saying that they corrected the misinformation about 10 days after I wrote to them.

Bubba Hempz said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bubba Hempz said...

Dumb fuck

Bubba Hempz said...

Dumb fuck

Unknown said...

Dumb ass. Go back to school.