In academia, one of the greatest concerns with statistical studies is the danger of “confirmation bias” or “myside bias.” A desire to prove a point can lead to a blindness to opposing data or information. This week, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) repeatedly demonstrated the scourge of statistical studies with spectacular and embarrassing success.
Klobuchar released a chart before Thanksgiving to blame President Donald Trump for rising consumer costs. The only problem is that the chart showed that the skyrocketing costs occurred under former President Joe Biden. Klobuchar focused on the short period on the chart representing Trump’s second presidency, while ignoring the soaring costs under his predecessor.
What is most notable is that just the week before, Klobuchar committed the same error, associating rising energy costs with Trump, who saw energy costs soar under Biden. The response was withering:
Confirmation bias has been previously prevalent among politicians like Klobuchar. Of course, many simply do not care if the statistical claims are true in advancing their immediate political agenda. However, many can fall victim to their own desire for facts to be true and the bias can actually increase with more information:
“Worryingly, when the politicians were given more pieces of information on performance, they actually performed worse, relying more heavily on their prior attitudes. That means the issue cannot simply be addressed by relying on civil servants to provide more or better evidence for policy making – especially since civil servants are not immune from motivated reasoning themselves.”
For Klobuchar, the charts proved an absolute face planting. However, in our largely siloed news market, many citizens will receive such claims without seriously reviewing the underlying chart or data.
The irony is that, for those who did review the data, the claim only resulted in highlighting the countervailing message put out by the White House.
That is the pesky problem with trend charts. As Adlai Stevenson noted, “we can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.” That “path” was clearly laid out, and then ignored, by Sen. Klobuchar.
See Rush Limbaugh’s origin of Thanksgiving. The colonists began by implementing socialism. The result was failure. They changed to private property and the potential for citizens to enjoy prosperity. The colony prospered. Socialism failed, and free enterprises in free markets prospered. Get the politics (i.e. communists) out and let free market competition generate the best products at the lowest prices. See? It’s simple. Solution: Get the communists out and let the industry professionals prevail. Courts exist to provide redress for corruption and malfeasance.
“free market competition generate the best products at the lowest prices.”
No, they don’t. Free market competition generates monopolies which charge whatever maximizes profits or, in other words, whatever removes as much cash as possible from the buyers. This is especially fun with inelastic demand, such as for critical health care, but also for things like fuel where there is no alternative to getting to work.
Anyway, Limbaugh was a drug addict. Per his own standard he should have been thrown in prison for a very long time.
So was JFK you fool.
In great disappointment the rate of increase over the previous period was 9%. The main problem is that Trump specifically promised to deliver NEGATIVE price growth. Anything above 0% is a failure of Trump’s.
Let’s also include “cherry picking” to find a quote that supports some pre-made conclusion.
““Worryingly, when the politicians were given more pieces of information on performance, they actually performed worse, relying more heavily on their prior attitudes”
This is suggesting that better performance is achieved from having less information to work from; the ideal from that idea would be to have no information. Seems counter-intuitive, but it is in line with the Emperor’s New Clothes where the information that the Emperor was naked was suppressed, much like Trump is suppressing all the economic reports he dislikes.
It’s also useful to note that under Biden 50% of the price increases were directly traceable to profit taking; an unspoken collusion among suppliers to just jack up the prices which was seen in the jacked-up profits. The result was the inevitable push-back by consumers and the turn from the suppliers to reduce some prices to regain market share after hitting the inelastic margins ; nothing to do with Trump.
Anyway, cherry picking is worse than confirmation bias; especially evident when no counter argument is made over the essential claim. Prices have continued to rise for 10 months into an administration who promised to bring prices down. Instead of looking at someone else’s work, do your own and show how much better you are.
Anonymous writes, “It’s also useful to note that under Biden 50% of the price increases were directly traceable to profit taking; an unspoken collusion among suppliers to just jack up the prices which was seen in the jacked-up profits.”
If it were profit-taking, then prices would have relaxed after the supply chains eased and profit taking ceased. Inflation actually accelerated even as supply chains were improving. Thus, the overall CPI increase under Biden was not just 9.1%. That was just year-over-year for June 2022. It was 21.5% total inflation for all four years. Voters noticed and didn’t blame business.
Yes, dio. Aren’t the utilities losing money for nonpayment creating a problem?
What is surprising is that Diogenes doesn’t understand compounding of interest. Actually, no shock there.
Why would prices relax? The profit taking didn’t ease.
Democrat voters did notice – the Republican voters thought the Circus Peanut in Chief would fix the economy and he hasn’t. Instead he is using a variety distractions like a laser pointer with a cat to keep the Republicans dupes from realizing he’s up to his neck in the Epstein files, possibly as a co-conspirator.
It’s also useful to note that under Biden 100% of the price increases were directly traceable to the law of supply & demand. The American Rescue plan increased the amount of cash in ppl’s pockets, while supply chain issues limited the amount of goods that money could buy. Ppl COULD pay more, and they did.
It’s also useful to note that under Biden 100% of the price increases were directly traceable to the law of supply & demand. The American Rescue plan increased the amount of cash in ppl’s pockets, while supply chain issues limited the amount of goods that money could buy. Ppl COULD pay more, and they did.
Stated otherwise: “People believe what they want to believe.” Klobuchar, being a “person” — albeit one with an IQ approximating January room temperature in an igloo — typifies today’s TDS-afflicted Democrat…, elected, remember, by a swarm of other TDS-afflicted morons.
Home-energy bills will be a footnote when the sky finally falls.
We’ve been living in the era of John Maynard Keynes for 90 years. That it lasted 90 years is only due to slight policy shifts like Social Security reform in the eighties or Quantitative Easing in the noughties which masked or encouraged even more public debt formation.
Some experts say that the markets are not overpriced relative to gold, but that dog won’t hunt. The question is not about gold but about how highly assets are priced relative to their income streams, and that’s in bubble territory across nearly all asset classes.
Some suggest the gubment can weasel out of a crisis by inflating the currency. We did that after WW II and it worked with some hiccups, but history will neither repeat nor rhyme this time. Post-war debt resulted from temporary war spending–not permanent entitlement programs.
If the gigabubble pops under Trump, the Democrats and RINOs will blame him for their sins and keep on sinning, and yeah, the RINOs are culpable, too. When DOGE found corrupt spending for NGOs, 90% was Democrat NGOs and 10% was GOP NGOs, but the RINOs screamed almost as loudly as the Democrats about the cuts.
History is often unfair because most people in the world are fools
The focus should be domestic food supply and production. Moving back to an agrarian isolationism might be a good idea and energy self sufficiency. The days of glory are done. Someone needs to be serious.
Everyone become Amish and learn to hitch a horse.
80% are.
“When DOGE found corrupt spending for NGOs, 90% was Democrat NGOs and 10% was GOP NGOs” because it was DOGE who decided what constituted corrupt spending, an accounting that has not been made fully public. The few they thought to leak were things like, teaching children to read, when the Project 2025 goal is to reduce education of all kinds. Mind that the DoD has failed audits with 40% of the spent budget without any supporting documentation for where the money went. If one really cared about spending, go for the biggest money pot and work down from there. If they are after political retribution, DOGE would go for the Democrats, which they did.
I just pulled out my box of rocks and the rocks said to me, see I told you that I was smarter than Amy Klobuchar. A second rock said, did you hear what that dittsoid said? She’s giving a bad name to rock nation. Surely she must be stoned. A third rock replied, no she’s just spikes her coffee at the Hard Cafe.
The fourth a precambrian rock exclaimed, this is getting really old. I closed the lid.
TiT,
Clever! And I did LOL!
UpstateFarmer, a sense of humor reminds me that though I made be age that I am not in the first stages of dementia. Humor is a great way to point out the ridiculousness of the low IQ politicians on the left.
Another dementia flare up huh?
For you?
Another memorable quote from my career in statistics (and accounting), “Figures don’t lie, liars figure”.
If that’s all you recall, then I’d say it wasn’t really much of a career. Now was it?
We saw a glimpse of reporting with the “seditious six”. At least one reporter asked what illegal orders had Trump given. A good follow up would have been, what did they expect the military personnel to do, if after objecting to the order, they were over ruled and the order stood?
A good question for klobochar (ignoring the obviously stupid graphical evidence), what Trump policies caused the inflation (no doubt the answer would be tariffs)? Followed by, how much of price increases occurred after the tariffs were implemented?
but only so much can be blamed on the news media. At some point, the progressively stupid that believed the Russia collusion narrative for over a decade without evidence have to be less stupid. Many progressively stupid still believe it.
No one believes Putin colluded with Trump. Trump isn’t smart enough to keep up with Putin. However, Trump is a really good sucker that Putin can puppet and Putin certainly did do that. I think when Eric Trump said all their funding comes from Russia, that was a bit of a clue. Maybe it was Trump Jr. One of Trump’s children.
In high school I read and eviewed, for extracredit, “How to Lie with Statistics”. I believe that it is still in print…
Klobuchar must have a copy.
My copy (by Darrell Huff) is right here on my desk, next to my two volume set of “Damned Lies and Statistics” by Joel Best. Huff’s book was first published in 1954 and when I took Statistics in college in 1955 the professor gave every student a copy. I still use it all the time when I read the NY Times or other Left-Wing propaganda organs.
That makes you 90 then eh gramps?
Why would you need it all time when you read a newspaper.
The ole gray cells ain’t clicking like they did eh?
Its noticeable, your comments reek of dementia.
He was 6 years old, a prodigy. Ever invention since then was his, mostly from work at Area 51 with the alien spacecraft, the one he arrived on from a distant planet when their sun exploded.
Aren’t you kind. That’s what we need, more kindness.
Nothing but hate from the left.
Remember how you loons claimed over & over that Biden was smart as a tack.
Omg, WOL, you were in college in 1954? Nice meeting you.
*. Past due utility bills may have nothing to do with the cost of utilities. For instance, the cost of rent, food, job loss and other may have caused these people to choose utilities for non-payment.
Uh . . . it isn’t confirmation bias: she is lying, she knows she is lying, she doesn’t care that she is lying, and her cohort really do have that little regard for our intelligence. Call it like it is.
I agree but she’s trying to hurt people with lies. She actually thinks she gets social points. Until Obama is debunked there’s nothing to do.
I have always said that politicians should have to pass Econ 101 and Introductory Physics before taking office to stop silly things like the Inflation Reduction Act and laws that legislate things that violate the basic laws of physics (like mandating electric cars with no mention of electricity generation, transmission, etc.) I guess I need to include Statistics for Dummies and Elements of Chart Reading too.
That would have eliminated Trump from the running. There’s no proof he actually took any classes in any college.
He can feel free to release the transcripts and any other school work products form the colleges he allegedly attended, if there is actually proof he went to classes there.
Ano
Prez Trump did make it to the White House twice, how about you?
And yet he is the President of the United States of America and you are regulated to making unproven accusations on the Internet. Your mother must be so proud! Enjoy the next three years.
This reveals the cognitive shortcomings of Democrat politicians I have witnessed since my childhood: they see economic realities as the function simply of who is in the White House, rather than the sum product of collective decisions made by people in government.
“Do not put faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say.” (attributed to William Watt)
The long-anticipated matchup will be a competition of division leaders and mark the Bears’ first regular season game on a Friday in nearly 60 years. The Bears have won four in a row and lead the NFC North, while the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles sit atop the NFC East.
The Chicago Bears vs. Philadelphia Eagles game on Friday, November 28, 2025, will be at:
Eastern Time (ET): 3 p.m. (Eagles Time)
Central Time (CT): 2 p.m. (Bears Time)
Pacific Time (PT): 1 p.m.
https://www.foxsports.com/articles/nfl/how-to-watch-eagles-vs-bears-time-tv-channel-and-live-stream-2025-week-13
Live Box Score: Fox Sports (Internet Score)
https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/week-13-chicago-bears-vs-philadelphia-eagles-nov-28-2025-game-boxscore-10706
Fox Sports (Some of the time Streaming maybe Available)
[link] foxsports.com/live
You forgot Mountain Time. The game is at 1 pm MT and noon PT. Enjoy the game!
There is more here than meets the eye.
For a moment, forget about the Staffer’s blunder and focus on the example they provided.
“Sky Rocketing Utility Bills” | the caption “Average past-due utility balances are at an all time high”
Why are these have these cost Skyrocketed? I.M.O.; Speculation. the cost of Fuel(s) Natural Gas/LNG, on-line Nukes, Coal, Wind, Solar,… has not gone up in a significant parallel pattern. What it is?, it is the Media & Financial Markets inflating the perceived ‘costs’ because they have a new campaign – A.I., Chip Plants, Data Centers, Micro Nukes (energy sector) “we must have more”. They have packaged a market for these and blowen a bubble of huge proportion around it. So the Electrical Power suppliers have seize the moment of the opportunity to raise prices (cost) surrounding the speculation. (i.e.: Raised Your Electrical Bill)
These; Data Centers, A.I. Hubs, Domestic Chip Plants (Nvidia), and Small/Micro Nukes Plants, haven’t even been built yet, for the most part they haven’t even broken ground.
SO why are we paying higher Utility Bills now, when the costs haven’t been realized. Why are We? because market ‘Speculators’ want their money now (up front), because they know from experience that some of these things (investments) are not going to pan out.
Politicians like Klobuchar are exactly like what Marjorie Taylor Greene was talking about in her resignation letter.
It’s a dead-end Game that they play and it’s leading Us nowhere, but into Debt. ⚡
Why? No one is watching them.
Because: Bloomberg, Jim Cramer, Suze Orman, MSNBC, etc… peddle it as a golden opportunity. So the proper attention is misdirected. The State Utility Boards/Commissions are just Proxies of the Energy Providers, they don’t really make a saving for the Consumers. (Same as State Insurance Boards in a similar matter)
Currently the Markets are way past Nose-Bleed levels. And Corporate Boards are so out of perspective that you have to realized that they are out-to-lunch.
Example (I gave before): Elon Musk was board approved a 1 Trillion Dollar compensation package that spans 10 years.
That’s One-Hundred Billion per year for 10 years (Total $1,000,000,000,000.00)
Tesla’s Board put a trillion Dollars into 1 Basket (One Golden Goose that lay’s One Golden Egg in 10 years).
This is delusional. (which is my point – the markets are currently delusional)
What would have been the responsible and reasonable thing to do was:
Put 100 Billion per year into a 100 Baskets (One Hundred Golden Geese that lay’s One Hundred Golden Eggs),
then the following year put 100 Billion per year into a 100 new Baskets, and so on for per year for ten years, so at the end of the period you would have 1000 Golden Geese that lay One Thousand Golden Eggs.
($1,000,000,000.00 x 100 x 10yrs = 1000 Baskets)
Re:
Musk = One Golden Egg in the Basket
Responsible Man = 1000 Golden Eggs in as many Baskets.
This is an example of ‘How disproportional the delusion of the Markets have become”.
[Regarding this: Bill Gates said of Bitcoin – it’s a matter of “The Greater Fool Theory”. Elon Musk has been using this out of his playbook a long time, a very long time]
Your Question: Why? No one is watching them.
The SEC is has been told to look the other way, The Banking/Financial regulators have been told to look the other way, The Board Members on the Seat’s of the Markets have been told to look the other way. and the poor; Bloomberg, Jim Cramer, Suze Orman, MSNBC, etc… have been told to peddle it as a golden opportunity.
Why? No one is watching them? No one feels they need to be watched.
What your question boils down to for all involved is: Is it Passive Investing or Out-to-Lunch Investing (Auto Pilot).
Buying into Political Fool’s Gold is just a sideline to keep the masses distracted from the fleecing of America.
One fellow here is a CPA and I am not , anon, but their actuarial must have determined that they can afford the loss of X number of non payments. They’re losing money.
Agreed, and another ‘actuarial’ point is that Elon can bail (croak) at any given time in the next ten years, leaving the Shareholder’s hopes dust in the wind.
I’ll grant them this: You can’t win the Lotto if you don’t play at all. That said, there are opportunities in the Market Casinos to make money, either by the Investors own savvy intelligence or by Professional Fund Gamblers the likes of; Swab, Vanguard, Fidelity, etc. … but ‘Sanity’ is a must for Success.
NOW the Democrats are concerned with inflation. NOW the Democrats are concerned with the advanced age of the President. NOW the Democrats view “insurrection” as something to be encouraged. What happened?
Now the economy isn’t being strangled by a planet-wide pandemic. There is no reason for inflation except for profit gouging by the corporations. It’s not like I can clear enough trees off my land to keep my house warm all winter. Four trees just aren’t enough.
Notably, the Republicans are normally apoplectic over the Federal deficit, until a Republican is in office, in which case they cut taxes to remove the funds that would reduce that deficit.
“There is no reason for inflation except for” the some $1 *trillion* so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” boondoggle.
Sen. Klobber-Char is in the holiday sprit. Peace on earth and good will towards man.
Is Klobuchar the problem or are the constituents of her district who will consider her reelection really the problem?
Klobuchar WOULD be an embarrassment for Democrats IF their propaganda media would do it’s job, and IF there weren’t already so many other abject Democrat embarrassments strutting around stealing her thunder, like Jism Crappit, Chiquita AOC Khrushchev and Maxwigs Waters.
But their voters are ignorant by choice, so they all get away with it.
Gee…. I wonder if Trump will be making fun of her for this? :-O 😉
Your criticism would carry so much more weight (along with many others) if you (and them) would simply refrain from tagging them with silly, amd sometimes disparaging nicknames, which, in most cases, aren’t even clever and simply cause people like myself to shake my head and wonder about the intelligence of those making the comment. Be Better!
Anonymous says:November 28, 2025 at 11:47 AM
“Your criticism……………”
Now tell us what your position is on Klobuchar and media not honestly covering her BS.
OT
Democrats [and media] are blaming Trump for the shooting by saying the National Guard shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Blatant lies.
The truth is that the homicidal Afghan immigrant shouldn’t have been there.
Not there or anywhere in America.
Democrats and RINOs and theThird World savages they imported are responsible.
Young – it is premature to rush to judgement on the DC NG shooting.
First – though Biden botched the US withdrawl – the US was going to leave Afghanistan.
And Absent the Afghan people stopping the Taliban on their own, there were going to be thousands of Afghani’s that had aided the US whose life would be forfeit if the Taliban took power.
We had a moral obligation to those people.
This killer appears to be CLEARLY one of those people – atleast so far.
He not only aided the US but actively participated in violent operations fighting the Taliban.
We do not have a clear picture yet what drove him to acts of violence.
He was in the US legally and had no reasonable fear of deportation.
And while there is reports that he shouted Jihadi epitphs during the shooting, there is little evidence so far that he was an islamic terrorists.
Both of those assessments are PRELIMINARY and could prove incorrect.
Trump has ordered better vetting, but there is not a good reason to beleive Better vetting would have red flagged this person.
John,
Possibly true.
He lost his mind is the reason.
That’s the go-to leftist excuse.
But it doesn’t explain the murders and assaults by so many Afghans in Europe.
Perhaps their minds are intact and consistent with the Dark Age culture from which they emerged covered in blood.
Biden…………… You got that one right.
Your right in your caution as to all the facts need to be collected however is it possible that like the Chinese, some Afghans were taking the long road and supported the CIA.? They acted as their agents to get real time information and followed orders to prove themselves . Perhaps then in the good graces of the CIA they could come here with sponsors even if we did not withdraw from Afghanistan?
Some would call this a conspiracy theory however there are many sleeper cells and some have acted.
He was a paid mercenary- someone said, don’t bring your proxies back to the USA. When the payments stop the calculus changes. Any subsequent deaths ( or not) are on the Taliban.
The Taliban has made no effort to attack the continental US. They have concentrated on pushing the West out of the Middle East. The West, on the other hand, continues to interfere in the Middle East, mainly selling weapons to the wealthy leaders to use to kill the poor people there.
“The Taliban has made no effort to attack the continental US.”
Apparently, you are not a fan of learning from the bloodbath on 9/11.
The Taliban supported and protected al-Qaeda.
Trump bragged that he had screwed Biden by undermining the forces in Afghanistan so badly that the withdrawal would be a disaster. The only way for a more orderly withdrawal would have required a surge of 20,000 – 50,000 troops. Trump had pulled down to 2,500 troops, let 5,000 terrorists out of prison, made a deal for that release to not shoot at American troops. Trump made a deal with terrorists, rewarding terrorism.
“We do not have a clear picture yet . . .”
Him shouting “allahu akbar” before shooting paints a pretty clear picture of the vicious ideology that motivated him.
The shooter was a CIA related asset in the US war in Afghanistan. Either he’s still an asset and working to start an American civil war to place the country under Trump’s martial law or he was seeing the writing on the wall that Trump is going to deport Afghanis, including him, back for certain torture and death at the hands of the Taliban.
I can see how a former asset might like the idea of getting in a few licks before being sent to have his hands and head cut off in a public square for supporting a nation that sent him to a death sentence.
Oh, Trump vetted him last spring.
Odd, we brought many people from Nam and they didn’t go around killing our NG.
This reminds of her words after the George Floyd fentanyl death. She got on her bullhorn to complain about the Minneapolis police procedures and policemen, scorching the choke hold technique. Turns out she was the local state representative, then congressional rep, and then Senator, who had approved and oversaw everything about that police precinct over all these years, including the choke-hold training textbook, which taught their officers how to use the choke-hold.
The ‘choke hold’ wasn’t. The restraint hold was taught to the police and the illustration in the police training manual looks exactly like Chauvin’s hold on Floyd.
The autopsy report is available and it shows NO damage to Floyd’s neck and NO indication of asphyxiation.
The autopsy does show that Floyd had 11 ng/Ml of fentanyl in his body. Only 9 ng is frequently fatal.
Floyd also had an enlarged heart and significant blockage in major arteries.
The police didn’t kill Floyd.
Chauvin and the other officers were sacrificed to political games and mob angers.
Thank You.
Human sacrifice has soothed the fears and hatreds of mindless savages since time immemorial, thus, as the jungle reclaims our nation, we should hardly be surprised by the occasional splash of an innocent tossed into the barbarous tribesmen’s kettle.
Floyd would have been alive were it not for 3 cops squeezing the breath out of him. A similar torture was used in Salem during the witch trials. As to the heart – it was removed by a state supplied coroner who discarded the heart and took no photos. There is a difference between indications of asphyxiation and indications of strangulation. People ultimately die of asphyxiation, either because of excess blood loss or simply because the heart stops circulating oxygen from the lungs. Asphyxiation matches the fictional death of Jesus Christ as the effort to inflate the lungs and lift the weight of the body becomes too great for the diaphragm to manage and just cannot continue under the pressure. A pressure similar to having 3 cops kneeling their weight on a handcuffed suspect.
Whether the training manual says to or not, it’s still murder to pile on a guy until they stop breathing. It’s also a bad sign when the cops are enjoying the struggle of a guy for his life. Makes the cops look like psychopaths, which is why being a cop is a likely draw for psychopaths.
LIE…