If it’s real, then he should be able to answer this question posted on Twitter by Gregory Allen Perry ( @gallenperry ):
What is the payout on a $1000 bet that a terrorist attack in will occur in Kashmir in the month of February with no less than 20 victims killed if the price of silver drops by 5% immediately prior to Pakistani tax assessment in the year before?
If he can’t answer a question at least somewhat in the same vein as that, then this is crap. If he can (within any reasonable degree of confidence), then I’m wrong.
That would be if the price of silver increases by 5% then.
According to the post if the price of silver is higher, the tax threshold increases and more people have extra money to support whatever organization they want.
Actually no, the lower the price of silver the more people are eligible to donate since the criteria to fall in that group is lower.
Despite the lower price of the silver, the "tax" is a static fiat-based % so basically more people are donating the same %. All the people that were donating 1.5% if holding a balance over $380 would still be donating it (and the same $amount) if the threshold were $360 (silver price drops), more people would be donating since now everyone between $360 and $380 would also be donating a 1.5% in addition.
If the donation was in silver then it might even itself out, but you'd have to look at a distribution curve of income to know for sure.
But if I understand correctly people donate when they don't have to pay tax.
From the twitter posts:
> Individuals who fall just below the threshold one year due the chance price of silver suddenly avoid a 2.5% gvt tax. Those people then increase their private donations to charity (since they have more disposable income + islam calls for alms-giving).
No one said in the twitter post that correlation is causality. There is a correlation and this is an attempt to explain the correlation.
Even if the explanation of the twitter post is far-fetched, the approach of understanding and finding periods of stress in some population around the world by trying to understand their cultures and economies is refreshing.
Also,...
Over-fitting data.
My god these things drive me crazy.
If it’s real, then he should be able to answer this question posted on Twitter by Gregory Allen Perry ( @gallenperry ):
What is the payout on a $1000 bet that a terrorist attack in will occur in Kashmir in the month of February with no less than 20 victims killed if the price of silver drops by 5% immediately prior to Pakistani tax assessment in the year before?
If he can’t answer a question at least somewhat in the same vein as that, then this is crap. If he can (within any reasonable degree of confidence), then I’m wrong.