There's nothing wrong with statistics. If you want to know what's happened, what other tool is there? But, to extrapolate from what happened to what will happen, you'll need more than statistics. Everybody seems to implicitly understand this, because everybody has a different theory about the statistics. How could they not, in view of the paucity of information. 100+ years of market history is supposed to reveal the underlying trends and laws? People could argue if trends and laws can be discerned through 4000 years of history, and the opperative word here is argue. But can the experience of such a short time as what is being discussed here be subject to the kinds of intelligent understanding that leads to prognostication? I don't think so.
I think the whole discussion is preposterous. These questions should not be decided on this basis. It is not helpful for progressives to argue for or against corporate schemes for social security, unless arguing against them implies dismissing the entire frame of the discussion, and substituting another based entirely on different assumptions. NOBODY should be poor, hungry, homeless, etc. That's the basic assumption that should be made. NOBODY, no matter why, no matter what. But the corporate agenda makes entirely other assumptions. What's the point of discussing the details when the basic assumptions are not agreed upon?
Quincy