Whatever credibility Dan Jones and Associates might have had with the 34,000-plus federal retirees went down the tube when Jones played straight man for the governor in his comedy of trying to beat the retirees out of the court-ordered repayment for taxes illegally collected (plus 12 percent interest) and questionably spent.

The intimidating questions Jones asked were obviously designed to make the respondent feel that "hey, the governor is going to win in a long, drawn-out court fight, so you'd better take what he is benevolently giving you, or you'll get nothing."According to the media, Jones' outfit contacted 602 retirees with its "when did you stop beating your wife?" type of questions.

I am one of the retirees who, like Jones, has tinkered with statistical inference over the years. Any researcher knows that for a study to be statistically significant, the author must guarantee that the sample is truly random.

Perhaps Jones would be willing to let the retirees and the public know precisely how he developed and selected the magical number of respondents (the special 602) and what statistical procedure his staff used to establish an acceptable 4 percent margin of error.

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In the meantime, the 12 percent interest continues to accrue. And the likelihood of the courts letting the governor bully them around as he is trying to do the retirees is not very great.

Jones coming up with what looks like a phony numbers game hardly gives the governor moral (or legal) ground in making his case to continue to deny the federal retirees their court-ordered refunds.

Howard A. Matthews

Bountiful

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