BARRY J from TX posted about 1 month ago:

#1 I love data, no matter how useless it might seem. I always learn something I can use elsewhere. Sometimes I find relationships and connections that seem to explain WHY some characteristic exists or is absent. #2 My goal here was to estimate how well AAII chapters cover the entire US. I counted 26 or so chapters and then placed them within the appropriate State. Then I counted clubs by State. AAII chapters represent 17 of 50 States. Then I compared these 26 cities and 17 States situs to the counts and percentages listed on the latest AAII Sentiment Map. #3 I could not find a correlation between the presence/absence of a chapter and increased Sentiment participation. #4 I did notice that about half the states had very low sentiment survey participation. You can estimate this uising the percentages across State groupings that have the simplest common divisors - e.g., 50%/50% = 2, 67%/33% = 3, 25%/75% = 4, 40%/60% =5, etc. #5 I noticed that these low participation numbers did not change much week over week. #6 This may imply that the AAII Sentiment Survey may be a skewed predictor of overall sentiment, although statistically "significant." #7 There is a big "so what?" in here somewhere. #8 The AAII survey IS a statistically independent sample and therefore "useful" -- but not significant (other meaning) -- data. #8 But the curiosity remains. Why are about half of the states not represented by chapters and survey participation? My guess? It's a function of the urbanization -- some States have fewer large cities to support a Chapter-- and other localized demographic factors. #9 I was gobsmacked that some of the largest states are so poorly represented by Chapters. FL and PA are the most interesting. #10 I started to compare BI chapter coverage to estimate the value it would add to an AAII-BI partnership, but I lost interest and decided to go running to cleanse my mind.