Tim Worstall

4 responses so far ↓

• 1 john b // Feb 29, 2008 at 1:11 pm

  Hmm. Personally, I’d trust TNS and AC Nielsen’s data, collected directly from supermarket till scanners and updated weekly, more than I’d trust a single store visit made by a hack with an axe to grind.

  But what do I know? I mean, it’s been a good few years since I used to run a consumer goods market research programme, and maybe there’s been a shift in acceptable methodologies away from extensive data gathering and towards believing the anecdotes of idiots…

• 2 Kay Tie // Feb 29, 2008 at 5:02 pm

  “away from extensive data gathering and towards believing the anecdotes of idiots…”

  It works for setting Government policy. No, wait..

• 3 JuliaM // Feb 29, 2008 at 7:47 pm

  I have yet to see what Martin Samuel has supposed to have got wrong?

  “How exactly are 1,660,000,000 chickens going to be reared annually on a free-range basis (actually 1,726,400,000 because free-range chicken have a premature mortality rate of 4 per cent, meaning an additional 66,400,000 would be required to cover the shortfall), adequately fed and cared for? Now, or in the foreseeable future, it is simply not sustainable…”

  Are his figures incorrect?

• 4 john b // Mar 1, 2008 at 12:32 pm

  No idea. But I was referring to the bit that Tim quotes, where Samuel suggests that because his local supermarket is discounting free range meat, that means that the bottom has fallen out of the market and that all the people who actually know more than him about the market are talking bollocks.

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