They look at nominal numbers and run with it;
"Did you know back in 1872 milk cost 3 cents a gallon. BUT UNDER GEORGE BUSH IT COSTS $3! Bush is in cahoots with Big Milk. Impeach Bush now!"
Of course, maybe that might be a bit extreme, but I have seen such outlandish comparisons in the past that make most economists' heads shake. But this was one where I think we need a lesson in economics;
There is a thing called "Critical Mass" wherein bicyclists in the city clog the main roads to protest the use of cars and advocate the use of bikes. No doubt a more lefter leaning group, and no doubt they cause more carbon to be emitted as they effectively create a traffic jam, but that aside this is just another case of leftists not bothering to have any semblance of intellectual honesty, or perhaps are just plain lazy.
Adjust for GDP people. It's like saying "Bill Gate's has over $1 MILLION dollars in credit card debt! What a big bad debt hog!"
Well, big whoop. He's got $40 billion in assets. You have to compare the amount of debt to what the government (or individual or company or economy) makes. Yes, there is $9.6 trillion in GROSS federal debt (another adjustment I shall ignore for now), but as a percent of GDP that's only 72%.
To compare to yourself, ask how much debt you owe (student, credit cards, mortgage, etc) and divide that by your gross income. Most people would would be well above 100%, probably even 200%.
Now, I do share the bicycle rider's sentiment that Bush has spent too much (though he would contest it was on Iraq and I would contest - with documented proof - it was social security and medicare), but can we just agree to do some simple token, high school economics and adjust for things like inflation and GDP?
14 comments:
I love the smell of hate in the morning.
Bush CAN'T, by definition of the American system of government, spend anything; the executive doesn't have the power of the purse.
Critical Mass demonstrations are more about creating opportunity for publicly showing off your inner jerk than getting people to ride bikes.
Liberals don't have exclusivity on playing with relative numbers. One of the GOP's favorite games is to say that they've increased funding for a program while funding it at less than the rate of inflation, which is essentially a cut.
If the program isn't justified, fine, but it pisses me off when they act like they're supporting a program at the same time they're killing it.
Oh, come on, Ed. To grant an increase, but not the rate of inflation is slowly, VERY slowly, killing something off, if at all. Bar a need for a service skyrocketing at 10-30% a year, one would assume with inflation at 3% and an increase in 1%, the administers of whatever said program could manage managerial efficiencies to cut costs by that 2%, heck 5% to induce cost savings? Perpetual ways to lower costs of 1-2% is just standard in the private sector.
Take schools for example. If you don't fund schools with inflation adjusted salaries for teachers or inflation adjusted maintenance budgets, you're going to have lower quality educators and crumbling buildings over time.
No, it's not an immediate disaster, but it's not an honest statement to say that you increased funding if you didn't keep up with rising costs.
If you got an inflation-adjusted raise, would you call it a raise or an inflation adjustment? If you got a raise that was less than inflation, would you consider it a raise?
The public schools are arguably the worst example to provide. They're overfunded to begin with, per pupil spending (adjusting for inflation) has always gone up. When (or at what school district) has there been a cut in the budget that has not been in line with enrollment dropping (which there has been a few).
Besides, even you will admit there is room for massive improvements and cost savings in the public schools. The discrepacny between per pupil spending in private v public schools would attest to that.
Ninny ninny boo-boo. My debt to income ratio is 26.8% and that is including the 40% of that debt that is owed for my daughter's student loans. And to fend off the next point to be raised, no I'm not rich. Household income in 5-figures.
The result of this is that I simply cannot fathom how both parties manage to throw trillions, year after year, down their pet rat holes. I don't figure I owe the government, or my so-called "fellow citizens" a damn dime.
I only have two questions;
1. Did your daughter major in anything worth majoring in for you to foot the bill and impoverish yourself (ie-engineering, computers, medicine, etc).
2. Why are you paying for your daughter's education in the first place?
That being said I do salute you in having the fiscal discipline to manage your finances to such an extent. If people were like you, literally, and I mean LITERALLY, there would be no financial problems in the world.
If you don't fund schools with inflation adjusted salaries for teachers or inflation adjusted maintenance budgets, you're going to have lower quality educators
That's utterly laughable, as if the quality of "educators" in our primary school system could get any worse.
Hmmm, good questions.
1.Yes and no? B.S. Astronomy and finishing up her PhD at the moment. Is that salable? Her employers at Jet Propulsion Lab seem to think so. Work in remote/IR sensing should also be applicable elsewhere.
2. Well, we could have told her to root for herself, but like most Americans, spoiled the kid. But I didn't pay for it all. Loans were 50% in her name and 50% in mine after the insufficient college savings fund ran out. I've paid zero toward the PhD. I gave her no other allownace in college either. She studied and worked.
She herself has been careful enough that when she went to buy her first new car (at age 20), she had the cash to buy it outright. Took a loan on it though, and paid it off quickly, to establish a credit history.
randian, your comment proves my point. I know, and I'm sure you do too, a lot of people who would be excellent teachers but won't do it because the salaries haven't kept up with what they can make in other fields.
Captain, I noticed you took a pass on my examples of personal raises. Would you consider a 1% "raise" when there is 3% inflation a raise?
I know, and I'm sure you do too, a lot of people who would be excellent teachers but won't do it because the salaries haven't kept up with what they can make in other fields.
School budgets have far outstripped inflation for many decades. Schools don't get better. I conclude that any claim that education would get better if only we spent more money is absurd on its face.
I know far more people who won't teach because:
1) The bureaucracy
2) It's absurd that I can't use my engineering degree to teach
3) The post-grad teaching requirement is worthless
4) Worse, the post-grad stuff teaches the latest politically correct claptrap, not effective teaching
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