8 ms·
"In the fall of 1972 President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used the third
by jules 4y ago
"In the fall of 1972 President Nixon announced that the rate of increase
of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president
used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection."
-- http://www.ams.org/notices/199610/page2.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/199610/page2.pdf
- emerged 4y agoSounds like a real jerk.
- ironSkillet 4y agoFirst and only time maybe...
- inasio 4y agoDuring the Covid pandemic health officials occasionally used similar language: The rate of increase in new cases was increasing/decreasing...
- tunesmith 4y agoOh, right! Yeah, in an Rt graph, any time the upward slope starts getting more gentle.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- BrandoElFollito 4y agoDuring the COVID pandemic, I saw some truly magical statistics in our government (I am French). I tried to understand some of their data but it was beyond my capacities - despite having access to some raw data. I do not think that the general population cared (the concern was rather on how to calculate 1 km from their house) but for someone who is allergic to bad statistics creating crappy results it was torture.
- inasio 4y agoI used to work doing epidemic models, it was torture sometimes to see people abuse mathematical concepts (eigenvalues, r0, etc) when talking about covid
- BrandoElFollito 4y agoWe had an expert one on TV answering questions, and one of the questions was the one I was burning to ask: "how do you know there are X infections per day"? To what he answers "because we get data from pharmacies, doctors, etc. about cases" - so how do you know that this is a total number? It is just the number of positive tests? - yes, so we know the ratio and therefore can tell for the whole population - so the number you provide is an estimate? - no, the number of cases (some time passed and then another question) - when you extrapolate (they used a more human-friendly term), how do you know that the ones who come for tests are representative of the whole population - ... While I must say that our government reacted to the pandemic almost very well (except that they lied at the beginning), some of the experts they put ahead were ridiculous.
- yoyopa 4y agowho was asking the questions?
- BrandoElFollito 4y agoIt was a "round table" kind of show with experts from the government, academia, science journalists etc. It was interesting because it raised the right questions but unfortunately dd not beiring any answers.
- rz2k 4y agoSurely, "jerk" has been an issue in many presidential reelection campaigns — even, long before CREEP.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- agoose77 4y ago
- SAI_Peregrinus 4y agoThe derivative of "jerk" is clearly the "term limit".
- saintrain 4y agoThis too!
- saintrain 4y agoThank you for this!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoIt cuts the other way with stock market earnings reports. There are blood baths when "profits are down" when actually profit growth is down on record profits.
- evancox100 4y agoPurely from a discounted cash flow/net present value standpoint, this does make sense. Changes in the growth rate of earnings massively affect NPV.
- sudhirj 4y agoGiven that these stocks are priced on their potential to grow and not on the assets they already have, that seems correct.
- teekert 4y agoYeah, this annoys me quite a bit, but I guess I was naive. I’ve recently started buying stocks from companies I think are really on a nice path for the future, I’m in the field of genomics so I think I have a nice view on novel developments, like Liquid Biopsies (blood based cancer monitoring and diagnostics)… And indeed some companies report growth of up to 30%… and then the stock goes down because it is less than expected. I know it was going to be like that but it’s even more so than I expected it to be. It feels… annoying. Same with Beyond meat, they strike some deal with McDonalds, feels like a big deal, the stock does… nothing :s.
- fauigerzigerk 4y agoI think that's because many market participants make bets on other people's expectations rather than anything fundamental. That's why the market is always wrong ;-)
- lkrubner 4y agoAs John Maynard Keynes said, it doesn't matter what you as an investor think of a stock, or what you think other investors will do, or what other investors think you will do, or what other investors think other investors will do, what matters is what other investors think other investors think other investors think other investors will do. "And there are some, I believe, who practice the fourth, fifth and higher degrees." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest
- Rerarom 4y agoThis quote came to mind when seeing the title but I could not remember the source (read it in high-school, I think before learning formally about derivatives). I'm glad someone found it.