Too much data to allow appropriate analysis
Reading the news is enough to give one a case of apoplexy. Whatever that is. Particularly news dealing with the inability of governments to protect anything other than business and big money. Apoplexy, without apology.
Over the last few days, the local newspaper has been poking sticks at the petroleum industry. The question, asked in a variety of ways, comes back to the simplest form: If there isn’t price fixing in the gasoline trade, then how come the prices never vary from one company to another? Beats me. The various spokespeople for the industry all say the same catch phrases. Curious coincidence, or something similar.
This afternoon, I learned that a federal government project dealing with cellphone pricing has been shelved. Get this: nothing to do with actual pricing, but rather with a tool that would allow comparison shopping. Killed. Dead in the cocoon. The government claims that it would be unfair for them to engineer a tool allowing a consumer to be informed, because the question is too complex. The cellphone industry, at least the companies that would go on record, claim that there is far too much data to ever allow analysis.
Hit pause. Too much data? We (the world) can predict the path of a hurricane, and we can get the space shuttle to within pitching distance of the space station on a regular basis. We cannot perform an analysis of the cellphone industry pricing structure IN CANADA?
To be fair, the government did try. The plan was vetted, and the programming was completed to a beta level. The program was actually tested on live humans without loss of hearing or sight. And now, because it might not be a “complete and accurate comparison” (according to the industry) the project is dead in the water.
Gas prices that are competitive. Cellphone pricing that is too complex for analysis. Next thing you know, we’ll learn that senate appointments are in the best interest of the population. My head may explode.
