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While the Big Short is a good movie, this scene reeks a little bit of the same type of "eureka-insights" that permeate Hollywood fiction like the West Wing and

While the Big Short is a good movie, this scene reeks a little bit of the same type of "eureka-insights" that permeate Hollywood fiction like the West Wing and pop-not-science books like those written by Malcolm Gladwell. Obviously unemployment is bad for people, and it had adverse effects on people leading to depression and suicide. But the 1%-unemployment-40k-deaths stat seems too neat to use as a statistic, because there are so many variables that affect health & suicide in a community to make drawing a specific numbered correlation like this accurate.

ggm 6y ago
It's a film, not a documentary.
sremani 6y ago
There are two types of truths one is directional and the other is factual/accurate. The 1% unemployment 40k deaths is of the first kind, it gives a sense of direction. Most linear regressions in real life are directional not factual.