Dan M wrote: > >> And how can we trust communist statistics? > > By secondary measure, of course. :-) If you want to argue that > things were worse than the official statistics under the USSR, you > won't find a debate opponent in me. But, after the USSR fell, a lot > of data became available. The person who wrote the paper in question > is an old lion of polisci, and has a great reputation. And, he is > publishing in a very anti-Communist journal. So, I'd be shocked if > he just took stock communist statistics without using secondary > data. It could be that the fall wasn't as great as he portrayed, > but men use to live longer, on average, than 60 years. Over 70 or > so years of Communist rule, demographic errors of that magnitude > become to big to miss. > But I think you are aware of Heinleins' (RA and V) estimation of the population of Moskow under commie rule. They estimated it at 500-600 thousand, when communist official numbers were kind of 3 million.
If errors that big could exist, then nothing can be trusted at all. OTOH, maybe the West isn't better, with the estimation of GDP that is based on the size of the housing market :-) Alberto Monteiro PS: WTI at 35. It's the end of the world. We will surely miss Bush. :-/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
