They don't bleeping know the bleeping difference between a billion, a million and a trillion.
Of course this makes sense because I really believe most people who vote for Barack Obama, let alone still support him today, probably don't know the severity or the weight of annual and perpetual trillion dollar plus deficits.
This Encuero idiot ACTUALLY BELIEVES taking "half a billion" and spreading it across the 455 million Americans (did we all just start making with the hanky panky here to magically boost our population by a full third in the past year????) will result in an additional 455 million MILLIONAIRES.
he's so stupid he doesn't realize the real math would be that you would have simply given 455 million people a whopping....
$1 each.
In other words ladies and gentlemen, how on god's great earth can you fight this ignorance?
one of the biggest problems I face when teaching finance and economic seminars, or even having political discussions or debates, is the herculean task of;
1. Convincing people they are wrong
2. Deconstructing their erroneous beliefs and showing them why they were wrong
3. Teaching them how things work in the real world.
But when you've been believing something for 45 years and never bothered to figure out how it works or to confirm it whether to be true (let alone be so effing stupid you don't know the difference between a million and a billion), it becomes pointless. It becomes sheer futility.
So just stop trying to convince people. They'll find out soon enough what the difference between a billion and a trillion is when we have to use truckloads of dollars to buy a loaf of bread.
I run into this a lot. People who can't do basic algebra declaring how smart they are and why can't we just do (insert liberal point) to fix the economy. You have average people not understanding complex systems and thinking their heavy hand can fix the problems. The "invisible hand" is as confusing to them as nuclear physics
ReplyDeleteMy personal favorite is a Classics prof named Ray C. who used to be active in university pensions issues. He once commented, "what did it matter if the pension fund lost 10%/annum?"
ReplyDeleteThis quote by the way is a good quick test of numeracy. An Arts prof will merely look puzzled. A numerate person will roar in disbelief.
Ahhh Captain
ReplyDeleteBeen to a school lately – Here in New Mexico our largest university has to provide remedial classes for a third of the students in the freshman class. If we don’t do something about the unions it will be getting worse.
Caspian
Reminds me of something a fellow student said in high school. "World leaders should get together and cut all prices of everything by half." You know, so the poor could afford bread, or something.
ReplyDeleteOn a larger scale regarding taxing the rich, this same issue still applies. I believe I saw this on a Cato Institute video. They took all the money from the wealthiest one percent of society, and all the money from Fortune 500 companies. The total still did not manage to pay off one years worth of federal US deficit. In other words, the tax rich jargon used by the left, is a complete myth. But these people refuse to do the math.
ReplyDeleteI just checked, the US population is listed as 312,200,000(Wikipedia). I thought that 455 million seemed a little high. But you know what they say, never let the facts get in the way of good math story.
Oh, if you want to deal with really stupid and argumentative people, just try to argue logically with facts with a 911 conspiracy truther.
ReplyDeleteTo Aon 6:56, never argue with conspiracy minded people. People that profess to conspiracy theories are complete morons. Think back to how many really stupid conspiracy stories you have heard in your life. I even remember hearing back in my school yard days , that General Motors started WW2 so they could sell more vehicles. How many taxi drivers have told you about some big government conspiracy? There is nothing you can do about these types of people. Just walk away, and move on.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous at 8:28 is in on it! It just proves how deep the conspiracy goes.
ReplyDeleteIn a parallel train of thought as to the functional illiteracy that affects our youth, this stunningly insightful column adds support to the argument that our society is headed for an abyss.
ReplyDeletehttp://www2.macleans.ca/2011/08/25/why-your-teenager-can’t-use-a-hammer/