http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda05-08.cfm

11/14/2005 11:40:13 AM

nm

[Edited on November 14, 2005 at 11:57 AM. Reason : .]

11/14/2005 11:56:59 AM

That's really interesting... I really wouldn't have expected that. Maybe not all of those "evil rich people" are evil after all.

11/14/2005 12:06:25 PM

i wouldn't expect it either, but I also wouldn't expect the heritage foundation to be honest.

see here
http://brian.carnell.com/archives/years/2005/04/000019.html

and here
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/012905E.shtml

here
http://www.nathannewman.org/log/archives/001348.shtml

oh, and here
http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientprofile.php?recipientID=153

,


[Edited on November 14, 2005 at 12:21 PM. Reason : .]

11/14/2005 12:07:14 PM

^ I guess we'll wait a little bit and let the rest of the world take a crack at validating these numbers. They are based on open sources, so it wouldn't be hard to attempt and recreate the results.

11/14/2005 12:21:29 PM

yeah, I won't judge until I've seen someone else verify them. I'm just saying that the heritage foundation is renowned for its statistical dishonesty

11/14/2005 12:22:40 PM

First off, there is very little shift here. Secondly, the numbers are definitly fudged.. go read the whole link on how they are calculating it and think it out for yourself.

I know I wont change Loneshark's opinion

11/14/2005 12:56:16 PM

^must not be a busy work day

11/14/2005 1:03:56 PM

^^ & ^^^ Reminds me of the old saying:

Quote :

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

11/14/2005 2:12:24 PM

its common sense that the poorest are those that turn to the military. recruiters target the lower classes. i dont need statistics to tell me that.

11/14/2005 2:16:55 PM

the real solution to all of this is to privatize everything, and change all non-profit ventures into for-profit.

this is a LoneSnark thread, after all.

11/14/2005 2:27:14 PM

^^^^ Actually no it is.. it took me about 2 minutes to scan to the charts he posted and read enough about how they were put together to determine they are full of shit.

11/14/2005 2:30:09 PM

I was curious if the charts were real or not but was unwilling to put forth the effort to determine for myself. So, I posted the pics on TWW and everyone came a running to help, Thanks

Of course, it would have been more help if you pointed out why they were bunk, but it looks like we have a consensus, so be it.

11/14/2005 3:41:33 PM

^^^ All we need now is a statistical correlation between this data and any aspect of the oil & gas industry.

11/14/2005 3:45:03 PM

does this graph looked fucked up to anyone else? The columns aren't clearly marked, it looks like they're trying to skew it so it looks like more recruits are middle class. Note that the marker indicating median income (41k) falls within the 40k column but the marker indicating the poverty threshold (17k) falls within the 20k column.

Also, this report indicates that around 60% of the recruits are from households beneath the median income but doesn't give any indication of the family sizes. For instance, a 6 person household on a 40k income is not middle class. They determine the recruit's household income by assigning the median income for their zip code. BTW, the median income for my zipcode is 40,963, which is no where near what I make. But that doesn't matter, because even if you knew my income you wouldn't know my family size and thus couldn't gauge my economic class. Also, if a family lived in the appartment complex I live in, I would definitly consider them to be poor, but this paper wouldn't. So...this paper isn't really useful for assesing what economic class we draw our recruits from.

Quote :

"This evidence directly contradicts Representative Rangel’s claim that under­privileged Americans are the source of military manpower and that the privileged are underrepresented."

no, it does not. This evidence can only contradict the claim that military recruits come disproportionatly from zip codes with low household income medians (which I don't think anyone was making). It says nothing about the actual income or poverty level of the recruits themselves.

11/14/2005 3:56:39 PM

i didn't figure it would take very long for someone who really felt like digging through it to spot the bullshit.

thanks for doing it for me, because if no one else had, I would ahve

11/14/2005 4:20:34 PM

^^

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's absolute nonsense and completely discredited, though. There's no real way anyone could compile data on how much ones' parents made, as that's never a question recruiters ask. Secondly, the correlation between people from more affluent zip codes might be suggestive of this author's point (which, if you bothered to read the article, isn't solely limited to economic background, but also educational backgrounds and race)

11/14/2005 4:54:29 PM

It's not absolute nonsense, it just doesn't prove what they claim it proves, and they present it in a dishonest manner. Zip codes /= neighborhoods, but they keep conflating the two terms. Zip codes usually have more of a mix of different income levels in them so to say neighborhood implies that everyone is around the same income level. Median income per household of a zip code /= household income of a soldier, but they use the two interchangably. All this information is in the article, but I'm sure most people didn't bother reading the appendix or the footnotes to find out.

so you end up with statements like this:

Quote :

" Middle-class youths, not the poor, are providing the bulk of wartime recruits to the armed forces, according to a new study by a conservative think tank. The Heritage Foundation research paper found that a higher percentage of middle-class and upper-middle-class families have been providing enlistees for the war on Islamic militants since the September 11 attacks on the United States. "

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20051107-113124-8563r.htm

which is just not true. They didn't find that, it even says that they didn't find that later in the article. But now a bunch of people who read the washington times will think that they did.

BTW, they made the same methodological error when looking at race and education, they don't have the data for the individual recruits so they use their zip codes, then in their analysis they talk about it as if they had the data on the actual recruit.

11/15/2005 9:53:51 AM

Quote :

" For instance, a 6 person household on a 40k income is not middle class. They determine the recruit's household income by assigning the median income for their zip code. BTW, the median income for my zipcode is 40,963, which is no where near what I make. But that doesn't matter, because even if you knew my income you wouldn't know my family size and thus couldn't gauge my economic class."

my original post i edited had a lot of points. many of them, after thinking for about 30 seconds, were incorrect and made me look stupid so i edited them (heh). the above quoted, however, was one of my legit points that i just decided to drop anyway b/c i didnt go into it as much as you have.

11/15/2005 11:04:24 AM