This Week: The Numbers Issue

Quote of the Week

Anti-War Resource of the Week

Lindner Watch: Arlon on Childhood Sexuality

Fun With Numbers

Greetings,

I often write about the “generosity” of the wealthy. It’s my way of reinforcing the idea that any number needs context in order to give it meaning. This week I look at a whole bunch of numbers in the news, attempting to illustrate how out-of-context much of our economic reporting really is.

Thanks to the many readers who wrote and told me that they had succeeded in getting through on the White House Comment Line. I guess I wasn’t patient enough (but I called so MANY times!). Anyhow, I’m glad so many of you stuck with it and got through. I thought maybe the whole thing was a joke. Now I know it’s real. Whether it has any effect is another matter...

Out of room for now. Until next week,

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

This week’s “Quote” comes from an unlikely source: the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal. I say “unlikely” since I usually think of the WSJ editorial pages as nothing more than the nearly incoherent—albeit influential—rantings of some of the very few Cro-Magnon men to who have survived into the current era. I was surprised, therefore, to find the following quotation in the Journal of February 6th, penned by the Journal’s Washington Bureau Chief Albert R. Hunt. After quoting former Nixon attorney general John Mitchell (“before he went to the slammer”) as advising Americans to “Watch what we do, not what we say,” Hunt wrote:

“[The president’s compassionate conservatism] rhetoric is outreaching, inclusive; the reality is a reverse Robin Hood, cutting back on programs that principally benefit the poor while initiating huge new tax cuts for the wealthy. Examples abound in this week’s Bush budget.”

Anti-War Resource of the Week

Last week I recommended that readers contact United for Peace and Justice, found at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/, or 646-473-8935.

This week I want to recommend it again, with a specific twist: Go to the website and look on the left side of the page for “Local and National Contacts.” Then, select your own state. If you are already active in a group, add your group to the list. If you are not already active, click “View All” and find one that you can actively support. Only organized resistance has a chance to make a difference. Join with others.

Lindner Watch: Arlon on Childhood Sexuality

Calls are beginning to be heard for the removal of Minnesota State Representative Arlon Lindner from his position as chairman of the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee. I doubt it will happen, though. As House Speaker Steve Sviggum said, “we do have certain First Amendment rights” to consider. His point, I guess, is that people have the right to say whatever they want, which completely misses the real point. That is, how ignorant must one reveal oneself to be in order to be judged unfit to hold a position of leadership in an elected legislative body. Ignorance is only part of the problem; hate is the other part. (All of these people are Republicans, by the way.)

This week’s Lindnerism has to do with his recent comments about sex education in the public schools. Many people came to the Minnesota state capitol recently to testify in favor of a bill that “would grant school districts more flexibility in teaching subjects other than abstinence.” This legislation follows recommendations from many studies, as well as testimony from scholars and people who actually work with kids and their health needs. A group of 30 students from Minnesota high schools converged on the legislature on Valentine’s Day to state their case in favor of fact-based sex education.

In support of her sister’s comment that “Sometimes it's easier to talk to someone you've never met before than talking to your own parents,” South High senior Solveig Mebust said, “There are people out there who can't get the information they need. I hope [legislators] understand the idea that, even if they don't support this personally, it's in the best interest of kids.” Solveig, I hope you run for office when you’re old enough.

Arlon Lindner had a response to all this lobbying, as one might expect. He said:

“We're promoting a child health holocaust if we continue to teach children these various homosexual and heterosexual techniques without any morals behind it. I wish sex education wasn't taught in schools; it's the parents' responsibility. Sexually-transmitted diseases can be a result of what kids are learning at school and then practicing.”

For an extensive rebuttal to the advocacy of ignorance, I highly recommend the book “Harmful to Minors, The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex.” The book was published by the University of Minnesota Press last April, and was immediately denounced by many of Lindner’s pro-ignorance ilk as promoting “pedophilia.”

Having actually read the book, I can say that it does nothing of the sort. What it does is to thoughtfully discuss sexuality in the lives of young people in all its phenomenal complexity. This led Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tim Pawlenty (who won and is now the Governor) to state at the time that “The University of Minnesota should put a halt to this book immediately.” Tim, meet Arlon. Arlon, Tim.

Fun With Numbers

The second-most popular subject that one runs across in the major media these days—after terror and war—is money. Money is always a popular topic, of course, but I’m talking about public money, as in taxes, spending, deficits, and budget cuts. As with so many things in the corporate media, there is good reason to be a little skeptical when you read stories about the economy and the political decisions being made about it.

Part of the reason why so much reporting on economics is kind of wacky is that many people don’t understand numbers very well. That’s not a surprise. I mean, how is the average worker supposed to understand the difference between a billion dollars and a trillion? These are highly abstract ideas that mean little to anybody.

UNLESS. . . they are put into a context that does have meaning, so people can relate the number to something that makes sense. Since we rarely get that context, the repeated use of figures like these has resulted in an epidemic of “Mysterious Number Syndrome” among the population. A few examples will illustrate.

Numbers Part I: The Generous Billionaire

In the New York Times (“All The News That’s Fit To Print”) of November 12th was an article headlined “Gates Offers India $100 Million to Fight AIDS.” Despite the fact that the article points out that Bill Gates’ Microsoft empire has branches in India, and hints that his “philanthropy could be good for business,” one is still left with the impression that this is a pretty generous gift to a country struggling with a potentially enormous epidemic. Until you put the number in context.

How do we put the number $100,000,000.00 in context? It’s pretty hard to do, but not impossible. How about the fact that Bill Gates is worth about $43 billion at the moment? (Probably a little less by now, with the stock market the way it is.) That means that $100 million is about 0.23 percent of his wealth. Consider, also, that the $100 million will be spent over 10 years. Let’s imagine that I, for example, were to donate a similar proportion of my personal wealth to fight AIDS in India. What would I donate? About sixty-nine cents. And I think of myself as a generous person!

The article points out that the annual revenues of India’s government are about $44.3 billion, or just slightly more than that of Mr. Gates. It doesn’t say how much of Mr. Gates’ wealth comes from his production facilities in India. $100 million, maybe?

Numbers Part II: The Education President

Another way of rendering numbers meaningless is to leave out considerations of need and/or law, choosing instead to report the impact of funding proposals as simply a partisan difference of opinion. A great example appeared in the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) of February 5th, in an article called “Budget Cuts Could Hurt At Home.” The article, by staff writer Kevin Diaz, explained a few of the ways that the federal budget proposed by George W. Bush might affect us here in Minnesota.

Toward the end of the article, Diaz states that “Congressional battles are also likely to erupt over Bush’s funding plans for schools, housing, and heating assistance for the poor.” (What a surprise, eh?) Then he says “The budget calls for a $2 billion increase in special education funding—from $7.53 billion in 2002 to $9.53 billion in 2004. But Democrats say it still falls far short of the need.”

Now, I’m sure some Democrats did say that, but what they might also have said was that there is a matter of federal law that is relevant here. That law, passed in 1975 and now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, mandated that all children with disabilities receive a free, appropriate public education. Recognizing that it costs more to provide education for children with disabilities than it does to educate children without disabilities, the law authorized Congress to provide federal funds to the states equivalent to 40 percent of the increased costs of doing their duty by these kids (always morally required, now legally required).

So, when “Democrats” say that Bush’s $9.53 billion “still falls far short of the need,” it is not a matter of opinion. To meet the 40-percent standard written into the law—and required to meet the human need that is recognized by that law—would require a little more than $44 billion, or roughly four-and-one-half times the amount proposed by the “President.” This fact, if it were reported, would make the statement that “The budget calls for a $2 billion dollar increase in special education funding” sound a little ridiculous.

Nygaard Notes Alternative Headline: “President Ignores Law, Refuses to Fund Special Education.”

[Post-script: Much to his credit, Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton introduced a bill—S. 133—on January 9th of this year that would provide the full 40 percent of special education funding that the federal law has authorized for the past 28 years and has never delivered. Call your Senator and encourage them to support S. 133, and call Mr. Dayton at 202-224-3244 and offer your support.]

Numbers Part III: Record Deficits?

About a month ago, after the “President” sent his budget to the Congress, it was common to read in the papers that the proposed budget “would create the largest deficit in the nation’s history.” That statement was on the front page of the local Star Trib on February 4th, but you could see similar statements in any media outlet you looked at. This is highly misleading.

While the projected deficits of slightly more than $300 billion would be the largest in history in straight dollar terms (beating the previous record of $290 billion in 1992), this is not the relevant way to understand the deficit. The way to think about any deficit is to consider how big it is relative to the overall economy, typically measured as GDP, or Gross Domestic Product. This is “the only meaningful measure,” in the words of economist Dean Baker and, using this measure, “we have a long way to go” before we set a record.

A $300 billion deficit is about 3 percent of GDP. The record in these terms, set in 1983, was 6.0 percent. Now, that doesn’t include Social Security and Medicare surpluses, which essentially didn’t exist in 1983, but even if we add those in we would still be about a full percentage point short of “the largest deficit in the nation’s history.” I hate to drag Bill Gates back into the picture, but think of it this way: If Bill and I each took out a loan of $100,000, that would be a crushing “deficit” in my world, but nothing more than pocket change for Bill. It’s all proportional, just like our nation’s deficit spending.

We could have a big debate about whether or not it’s a good thing to have a deficit of this size, but it’s misleading to say that we’re breaking a record. This is another way of getting an economic fact “correct,” but having the story wrong.

Numbers Part IV: See, This Is What I’m Talking About

At the beginning of this article I commented on the epidemic of “Mysterious Number Syndrome” brought on by all of this funny economics reporting. I was going to leave it at that, but yesterday’s (March 13th’s) Star Tribune carried an Associated Press story with a quotation that makes my point so well I just have to offer it here.

AP reporter David A. Lieb wrote the story—“States Trying to Save Money One Penny at a Time”—to illustrate the extent of the mania for budget-cutting that has gripped state governments all over the nation. “Some state officials are rationing paper clips and Post-it notes,” and so forth, Lieb reports.

Does this make any sense? It sure does, according to David Adkins, a Republican state senator in Kansas, “who has praised the penny-pinching ideas of new Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.” And why, exactly, does it make sense? Exhibiting symptoms of advanced “Mysterious Number Syndrome,” Adkins points out that it’s because “Dimes and nickels add up to dollars, and dollars add up to millions.”