Why I Hate Math

I hate math. 

Not just because historically it is the only class that could sucker-punch my GPA harder than George Foreman, but because people put far too much belief in things they don't completely understand. 

Which brings us to my two close friends: the stock market and statistics. Statistics being that thing you might have taken in high school as a means to get into a "good college," and the stock market is that thing that happened in New York back in the late 1920s.

A good analogy I have come across about the stock market and stats is: If you are not that knowledgeable, it is like playing roulette. If you are knowledgeable, you are playing roulette with slightly better chances. 

Some savvy investors claim that they can predict how the stock market is going to react. They can tell you where to put your money and what stocks to avoid. Penn, from Penn and Teller, put it best, "Statistics are not bulls***, the people that manipulate them are bulls***ers!" I imagine few people would argue with that statement. 

But yet we (and/or your parents) still feel our stomachs twist when the news reports a failing stock market and rejoice when the market heads back up again, but why? What do those red, yellow, green, white, negative and positive numbers mean?

Simple. We fear what we do not know. We are afraid that people that we have never met are buying and selling stocks and bonds of companies that we have never heard of and that those actions could further cripple our nation and leave us with less jobs, less to eat, less of a standard of living for the future generation.

I'm not a brilliant statistician, nor would I want to be, to be honest. But I know, like many, when the stock market is not doing all that well. For example, I was in line at the Sidewalk Cafe the other day, an onion bagel in one hand and a small milk in the other. When I made it to the register, I found that I did not have enough money for both. Hence, the stock market is in bad shape. 

My way of thinking about the stock market may be like a guy that goes camping, needing to know the time so he bangs a stick on a pan until someone yells at him, "Will you shut up? It's one in the morning!" But really, as citizens with no real training in the matter, do we need to know any better? 

Yes. Yes we do. We are citizens of this country. And that not only entitles us to know how our country is run, it obligates us to. Yes, you can go right ahead and blame Obama or Bush; they are easy targets and water cooler logic has served its purpose in the past. But that solves nothing. Unless we take the time to educate ourselves on how to better our nation, nothing changes.

I still hate math and probably always will. It made me so angry in high school when I could spend a night on math homework and get nowhere. But I'm not in high school anymore. However, I am still angry, now more than ever. Not about high school algebra, but about the stock market, globalization, and where I fit in all this. 

I wish I had a witty conclusion for this column, but I don't. The struggle to understand continues.