Proof that nobody knows math
The noisy little puppet show in DC is over, and the results are perfectly predictable though perfectly trivial. There was no shutdown and there will be no actual cut in spending. In terms of the nominal numbers, Brand-D gets everything it wanted and Brand-R yields on every important point. As always.

Brand-R had a perfectly good chance to achieve all of its alleged "policy goals" during the years from 2002-2007 when it had full control. "Republicans" did absolutely nothing during those years, which proved finally and conclusively that their sole purpose is to be a foil, a silly sidekick, a Sancho Panza or Barney Fife, to make "Democrats" look competent by comparison. That's their job, and they're doing it brilliantly, exceeding all previous standards of boffo slapstick. Sancho and Barney never wept in public.

Now that the perfectly predictable and perfectly trivial result is done, Pasha Obama claims that $39 billion is the "biggest spending cut ever." And all the media are going along with the claim.

Sad. Trivially true in linear terms of billions, but utterly ridiculous in percentage terms, which is the only way to measure anything relating to humans, including economic factors.

At the end of WW1 and WW2, the fed budget was cut by 60% in one year, then by 10% for several years thereafter. From 1954 to 2009 there were no cuts at all. Last year was the first decrease in living memory, a huge dramatic 1.7% cut.

Today's meaningless cut is 0.8% which is half of the previous year's meaningless cut, and it's utterly microscopic compared to those earlier postwar downsizings.

The fact that a President can get away with such a patently fraudulent claim is the best evidence that we're sunk.

Nobody understands how numbers really work.
  ¶ 4:15 AM