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Hi people, I'm a new poster here. I joined because although I'm not a statistician I work in face to face data collection and of course I also have an interest in the way statistics are used to inform/mislead me in my everyday information environment. I am looking for help to explain some email exchanges I had on utube where my correspondent (apparently he has a masters in Economics so he should have some idea) insisted that taxes cost jobs. I checked the OECD countries for % in employment and plotted the results against % of national gdp, and found what appears to be a trend for higher taxation to correlate with higher employment. My correspondent blankly refused to address my data, saying I'm cherry-picking (I attempted to do the reverse, looking for the largest dataset of cosistent quality) I dont know if my perception of trend (a 5% decrease in tax take appears to correlate with a 20% decrease in employment) is valid at all in statistical terms. Nor am I aware of a more competent or proper analysis of the tax vs jobs debate, any pointers would be appreciated. Anyway, am I missing something basic here? I'm going to try to attach my excel spreadsheet for reference - but I'm not sure if this list will accept it, lets see.... Alan ****************************************************** Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your message will go only to the sender of this message. If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's 'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically to [log in to unmask] Disclaimer: The messages sent to this list are the views of the sender and cannot be assumed to be representative of the range of views held by subscribers to the Radical Statistics Group. To find out more about Radical Statistics and its aims and activities and read current and past issues of our newsletter you are invited to visit our web site www.radstats.org.uk. *******************************************************