Re: Walmart sales & gas prices

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Perelman wrote:
>
> Jim is correct, but I did not think that gas prices would have that much of an
> effect.
>
> On Fri, Aug 26, 2005 at 07:59:32PM -0700, Jim Devine wrote:
> > Walmart traditionally has had its stores outside of the center of
> > town. Thus one had to drive to its stores, something encouraged by low
> > gas prices. But what if Walmart changes its strategy, building in
> > places like (say) Oakland, CA?
> >
> > On 8/26/05, Michael Perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > This chart shows what appears to be a pretty solid relationship over the last 10
> > > years.

There are millions of quite unrelated things that would show correlation
on a graph. I do not use the word "millions" figuratively, and I'm
probably underestimating the number of correlations which indicate
nothing. In fact I think Gould once showed there was a correlation
between gas prices and some astronomical event.

Carrol