What I find particularly annoying is that initially, people here accepted his conclusions at face value and tried to find excuses for the dramatic declines he asserts.

What I find annoying is that I wasted several irreplacable minutes of my life taking this report somewhat seriously, until finding out that it was the handiwork of a well-known fraud.

After that, Jerome's question has no further interest. What remains of interest is making obvious also to the statistically non-proficient reader the dishonest wrongness of Hughes' conclusions.