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As long as there is a discrepancy with the population numbers, the statistic is flawed and irrelevant. And given that Florida has half the population of California, you should see by now that the statistic is irrelevant. Think about it like this, you have two mathematical equations, y = x * 2 and y = x + 2, there is a single point where those two equations equal the same number (in our case, when the populations are equal). Any other point, the equations diverge and the resulting numbers have little statistical relevancy to each other. Sure, you can say that when x = 5 the results are closer than when x = 500, but ultimately they are still not equal and one does not reflect the reality of the other.Increasing the sample takes away the basis for opposing using percentages (that the sample is too small to be meaningful).
Other than a desire to use stats to mislead, why would you look at the raw number--which merely indicates that one state has a larger baseline population and says nothing about the question you're trying to answer--rather than rates?
You used the state-to-state comparison! I pointed out that that's something that has been going around in rightist propaganda circles and that it's a dishonest use of stats, which is what drew your ire in the first place. If you'd simply said, "thanks, I actually didn't mean to mislead but was fooled myself," that would have been the end of it. And anyway, prices are obviously the key metric to look at if you want to see how people value living in different areas (you wouldn't say that more people in the world driving Hondas than Bentleys proves that Hondas are more desirable cars, right?).
Because it literally means losing population. Losing population means you have less people. They lost population to Florida. The amount of people who left California was less than the number of people who entered California from Florida. I don't understand why that is so hard to conceive of. And to combat this you used a flawed statistic that means little as to whether or not your population numbers increased or decreased, as I've shown with my example.
There's a difference between the statistic of comparing two state's population numbers based on migration numbers between both of them (which was flawed as my example showed), and comparing just one state's migration as a percentage of it's own population to another state's migration as a percent of it's own population (which is not flawed and leads to a relevant statistic). Because those numbers reflect the actual reality.
At this point, I can't help but feel that you are not mathematically inclined and cannot perceive the difference between a relevant statistic and a flawed one. Unfortunately for you, you've chosen to hinge your argument on a bad statistic, versus literally any other statistic which is meaningful and lack the mathematical background to distinguish which reflects reality. And despite this mathematical ignorance, you continue to act smug and insult me.