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February 18, 2003
Show me the numbers
By QBlog in
I asked this question last month:
My question right now is how many people drop out of Quixtar each month? I mean a solid verifiable number. Not some estimate. They have records. They know who is active or not. I want a solid number. They quickly tell you how many have made a million each month. Tell me who didn't. Thanks.
I just discovered that Jerry C. responded and made some good points. Yet the logic being employed in his argument is flawed in my opinion. Here's why:
Jerry says, "Okay, I just wanted to point out in this particular post that you wanted a number of people who dropped out, or who didn't make money. Ask yourself... is that really important? You are asking about those who don't do what it takes in order to make the money. That is like basing your decision on whether or not to ride a roller coaster on someone's advice who had backed out at the last minute, or jumped off because the first drop was too scary. Following the ones who don't or didn't make it will get you just there. There are two sides of every coin. You can either focus on the positive side and get positive results, or focus on the negative side and get negative results." (read entire comment)
With all due respect Jerry, that is the answer that I've gotten many times when I've posed this exact question. Here's where I find fault with the logic:
To continue with the roller coaster example I pose this question - Would anyone ride a roller coaster if they knew that 18 out of 20 people who rode the coaster died during the ride? My guess is very few people would be in that coaster ride. How would the park get people to ride such a horrible coaster (assuming that it's still functioning)? They would hide the numbers and not let the new customers know that they would probably die on the ride.
Ok, yes, this is an extreme example and in case I haven't made my point let me try another, less extreme example.
Let's examine the lottery. Most people know that their chances of winning are something like 1 in 140 million or something. Really bad odds. Most people either don't play or only spend spare cash for fun without investing a large percentage of their income or their time in playing. Yes, there are those with problems but you get my point.
Now, with the lottery we generally only see the winners and this gets us excited about playing yet we don't overplay (us rational folks) because we know the odds.
With Quixtar I do not know any numbers. Let me make that clear. These numbers are examples only. But what if you found out that only 1/2 of 1% of everyone who invested in Quixtar for 3 years ever made a profit and only 1/2 of those people ever made it to Diamond. Would you be willing to roll those dice? Maybe you would be, I don't know. Yet many people would not. Many people would rather spend their time and money on something less risky.
And that is my point. We don't know the numbers, or at least I don't. To my knowledge nobody is forthcoming with some independently audited numbers of the Quixtar winners and losers. The numbers may be an 80% success rate or they may be closer to my made up example. I just don't know.
So when I ask for numbers, please don't give me the whole loser/winner song and dance. Just give me numbers. The state lottery is required to by law.