Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Spending, paying
Obama proposes "spending the leftover part of TARP to pay down the deficit."
Excellent. But why describe this as spending to pay down? In fact we're choosing not to spend a budgeted amount, thus cutting down the projection of what the deficit would have been if we had spent the budgeted amount.
We have gotten into the habit of working solely with models and projections while ignoring plain facts.
In earlier times this type of thinking was associated with ditzy blondes. It was a staple of comedy shows like Dagwood & Blondie or George & Gracie: the woman comes home from a shopping trip laden with hats and dresses, and claims she's added to the family nest egg because the store was having a clearance sale. She's spent less for these totally unnecessary items than she would have spent without the clearance, thus she's reduced the family deficit.
Similarly, the ditzy blonde Crimatologists try to claim that the current slow cooling is merely an accidental pause in the "inevitable warming", because their models are the only reality they can see. Because CO2 is increasing, they "know" that the earth is "really" warming. They trust their model, not the facts... even though their model is based on perfect reversal of facts and fails to predict anything.
An honest scientist, or for that matter a sane adult, would never fall for such convoluted nonsense. Rational people know: When facts disagree with your projection, you throw out the projection and keep the facts.
= = = = =
Another example of projection over facts: Obama's Nobel Prize. "He did accept the award in an aspirational sense", says one commenter on MSNBC this morning. In other words, the prize wasn't given for facts, but for a projection based on nothing at all. ¶ 9:32 AM
Excellent. But why describe this as spending to pay down? In fact we're choosing not to spend a budgeted amount, thus cutting down the projection of what the deficit would have been if we had spent the budgeted amount.
We have gotten into the habit of working solely with models and projections while ignoring plain facts.
In earlier times this type of thinking was associated with ditzy blondes. It was a staple of comedy shows like Dagwood & Blondie or George & Gracie: the woman comes home from a shopping trip laden with hats and dresses, and claims she's added to the family nest egg because the store was having a clearance sale. She's spent less for these totally unnecessary items than she would have spent without the clearance, thus she's reduced the family deficit.
Similarly, the ditzy blonde Crimatologists try to claim that the current slow cooling is merely an accidental pause in the "inevitable warming", because their models are the only reality they can see. Because CO2 is increasing, they "know" that the earth is "really" warming. They trust their model, not the facts... even though their model is based on perfect reversal of facts and fails to predict anything.
An honest scientist, or for that matter a sane adult, would never fall for such convoluted nonsense. Rational people know: When facts disagree with your projection, you throw out the projection and keep the facts.
= = = = =
Another example of projection over facts: Obama's Nobel Prize. "He did accept the award in an aspirational sense", says one commenter on MSNBC this morning. In other words, the prize wasn't given for facts, but for a projection based on nothing at all. ¶ 9:32 AM
