How Statistics Lie

In late 2006 shares of Citigroup (arguably once the largest bank in the U.S.) achieved a price high of $57.00. After bankers went public with their Subprime crime, the shares tumbled to $0.99 and then recovered to four dollars or so.

A recent headline? “CITIGROUP SHARE PRICE DOUBLES”.

If you bought stock at $50 and watched it fall to a dollar, you might have lost your house, your car and your wife. In fact the stock may have since quadrupled in price from its low, but that reality is valueless and grossly misleading in the real world.

The headline is a perfect example of what I call a “true lie”. It would be a sad story in isolation...but this is not an isolated true lie. You hear true lies every day.

You are routinely told that while you were shaking in your boots you missed the market low. It’s your fault, because markets have now recovered by fifty percent or one hundred percent or some such percentage.

Hello? I was in the “investment” business. There was nothing of substance to invest in at the low. Show me an investment, not another horse race speculation. Sorry folks....no investments. Only lies to make you feel foolish now that you have been robbed.

I’m keeping my powder dry, and I don’t buy into the story that I am to blame for criminal activity on Wall Street. We were legally robbed outright by the subprime travesty, and the robbers are still at large and in charge. Nothing has changed, and you should indeed be insulted by the barrage of true lies that point fingers at millions of victims.