From Investor's Business Daily: U.S. Deficit Shrinking At Fastest Pace Since WWII, Before Fiscal Cliff Read More At IBD: http://news.investors.com/blogs-cap...-fastest-since-world-war-ii.htm#ixzz2Ddfyl2LV Perhaps AK knows how to post the charts.
And perhaps you have no idea how to read them! We don't deposit checks or pay bills in percentages. We do so in actual dollars. The chart you just put in your article relies on percentages of GDP. In your chart, when GDP shrinks, the reduction becomes more impressive - because it is a percentage of a smaller number! In AK's chart the statistical game is purely a percentage trick. If I grow 10% on 10 dollars, that's just a $1 increase. If I grow 1% on $1000, that's a $10 increase. Yet in AK's chart, the 1% is the better number. Get real! This has been pointed out on AK's chart many times, yet he's still hoping we're as dumb as he is and posts them to convince us. You can play games with your charts and articles through statistical interpretation all you want. At the end of the day, the rest of us realize it's just that - games.
The truth is that I actually questioned the headline myself. Then I read the article. What falsehoods do you see in it/ Obviously I understand GDP can equal different percentages, or larger cuts, but is there something I missed, fact wise?
Yeah, dude. The entire premise of the article. It claims US deficit is shrinking at the fastest pace since WWII, and then uses the deficit numbers against falling GDP as percentage only. Additionally, even if it were to use actual dollars, what would that say? So we've grown the fastest since WWII, wouldn't any "credible" attempts to lower the deficit also be at the fastest pace?
It's a bit like your weight jumped from 150 pounds to 600 pounds, then you lost back down to 400. BFD, you're still a flat slob. The cited column was actually arguing that because of the reduction in spending attributable to special items, like bailouts, the deficit has improved dramatically and there is no need to punish ourselves through the fiscal cliff or tax increases now. There is some truth to that view, but the fact remains that spending is out of control. The only real solution is to control spending. That will onvolve cutting some entire departments, which the democrats will never agree to, and restraining the growth of medicare and medicaid, which the democrats will agree to only if the cuts only hurt rich republican constituencies.
Spoken like someone who obviously doesn't pay federal income taxes. I guess delivering pizzas doesn't pay all that well huh.