No. Not gunna doit: Nope.
Never have an ale with a ‘research guru’ particularly a statistician – new rule. I made that error; and, my poor old woodenhead is still aching, which is bad enough but he awoke the curiosity curse, which is not good.
It happened thus:- ‘the’ budget was being mulled over in a desultory, almost disinterested fashion when the allocations to ASA, ATSB and CASA got a mention. “Ferky Nell” exclaims he; “that’s a lot of dollars”. “So it is” I agreed: end of. He grabbed a coaster and produced a pen and sat quietly for a moment or two – then put his finger on the last figure at the end of a pile of scribble. “Wuzzat” say’s I. “Why that is a rough estimate of what it costs each person in Australia – every day to support those agencies” he replied, “but don’t quote me; it’s only rough”.
What is ‘rough’ is the staggering impost on the community to fund the mentioned outfits.
Then he threw down the gauntlet – the one that got me thinking. If you take a population base like say the USA and use that – say 100,000,000 folk and the total aviation support infrastructure cost 100,000,000 a year – that’s $1.00 per head – per capita.
He went on a little longer – but the end result showed fairly effectively that Australian aviation safety; on a per capita basis costs a shed load more than most of the successful first world aviation countries.
Of course a fellah like him can make the ‘stats’ say exactly what he wants them to; but it’s a curiosity; and, it depends on how you decide which data you use to divide into the total budget allocation – but, as this bloke demonstrated using the total population of Australia – the total per person is a seriously big number. It is a very good thing that the voting, tax paying community don’t get to see the true figures; there’d be hell to pay. If they (the public) ever worked out how little benefit the outlay provided, there’d be riots.
“Have a play with some numbers yourself” say old mate, “do the UK, USA and NZ – total outlay divided by population, see what you come up with, by comparison”.
Nope, Nah, not a chance, except the curiosity curse has kicked in. It is an intriguing idea.
Toot – toot. (No - repeat No 100 times).
Never have an ale with a ‘research guru’ particularly a statistician – new rule. I made that error; and, my poor old woodenhead is still aching, which is bad enough but he awoke the curiosity curse, which is not good.
It happened thus:- ‘the’ budget was being mulled over in a desultory, almost disinterested fashion when the allocations to ASA, ATSB and CASA got a mention. “Ferky Nell” exclaims he; “that’s a lot of dollars”. “So it is” I agreed: end of. He grabbed a coaster and produced a pen and sat quietly for a moment or two – then put his finger on the last figure at the end of a pile of scribble. “Wuzzat” say’s I. “Why that is a rough estimate of what it costs each person in Australia – every day to support those agencies” he replied, “but don’t quote me; it’s only rough”.
What is ‘rough’ is the staggering impost on the community to fund the mentioned outfits.
Then he threw down the gauntlet – the one that got me thinking. If you take a population base like say the USA and use that – say 100,000,000 folk and the total aviation support infrastructure cost 100,000,000 a year – that’s $1.00 per head – per capita.
He went on a little longer – but the end result showed fairly effectively that Australian aviation safety; on a per capita basis costs a shed load more than most of the successful first world aviation countries.
Of course a fellah like him can make the ‘stats’ say exactly what he wants them to; but it’s a curiosity; and, it depends on how you decide which data you use to divide into the total budget allocation – but, as this bloke demonstrated using the total population of Australia – the total per person is a seriously big number. It is a very good thing that the voting, tax paying community don’t get to see the true figures; there’d be hell to pay. If they (the public) ever worked out how little benefit the outlay provided, there’d be riots.
“Have a play with some numbers yourself” say old mate, “do the UK, USA and NZ – total outlay divided by population, see what you come up with, by comparison”.
Nope, Nah, not a chance, except the curiosity curse has kicked in. It is an intriguing idea.
Toot – toot. (No - repeat No 100 times).