Financial writer Robert Hagstrom has referred to investing as "the last liberal art" -- a field of endeavor that requires familiarity with an enormous breadth of knowledge and ability to synthesize between various sources of knowledge.Numbers play a huge role in the world of investing and economics and in the current market where financial news dominates world news, we are bombarded with data every day. In The Numbers Game, Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot explain the dirty little tricks that statistics play on us, and how we can arm ourselves for dealing with them without dismissing numbers altogether.
Take the idea of averages, for example: Did you know that I have an above average number of feet? Blastland and Dilnot explains that I do. We all do. Why? The vast majority of people have two feet, and some people have one foot and zero feet. But no one has three feet. So the average person probably has something like 1.997 feet -- enough to give me an above average number of feet.
The Numbers Game is full of examples of the ways that numbers can trick us: some frivolous, some serious, but nearly all illuminating. The book is wonderfully short, making it a quick and fun read, but it's impossible to make it through without becoming a far, far better connoisseur of data in the news, at the doctor's office, and in the annual reports of companies you're mulling an investment in.
It's on sale at Amazon for $14.96 -- 32% off the cover price -- and would also make a great gift.
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