Trumpled (Alternative Leading)

[LP]

PS: The above is tongue-in-cheek.  Trump chose to tweet about a MEANINGLESS STATISTIC.  That much is apparent from the memorandum of Keith Hennessy, a link to which is to be found in the Politico article to be found in my previous post.  He is a former Director of the US National Economic Council under George W Bush.  In other words, he was at the top of the tree in terms of delivering econometric advice to the White House.  He understands data such as National Debt figures.  I'd imagine that just about everyone on this site would have little knowledge in this area other than thinking "debt is bad". So, maybe his opinion should count for something.

He stated firmly that the statistic is meaningless.  It fluctuates, so comparing statistics a day or month apart isn't useful.  Moreover, he notes that Trump didn't cause the fluctuations, so he can't take credit for them.  He also points out that Obama confronted the GFC at the start of his term and used a stimulus package to address it.

But is this the new normal of debating?  Instead of addressing the merits of the opinion of Hennessey (which was accurately summarised in the headline), it's dismissed simply because it is referenced by Politico?  I hope that the standards of debating will improve both on this site and in the US.

Unfortunately MAV nobody is going to read this bit, especially the Trump boosters because they don't want to.

Everybody picks and choses what to quote and what to believe. I've had the same sorts of discussions on this forum about Australian debt, who was responsible for the improvements and who claims responsibility can be decades out of sync. I have a very good source, someone almost as high as you can get in Australian fiscal bureaucracy, that tells me political fiscal policy takes decades to impact the economy making results within one election term almost meaningless.

Trump and his like rely on the ignorance of readers to claim responsibility for short term changes and fluctuations that are meaningless relative to his recent actions.

btw; We can apply the same critical logic to the Zika reporting debate, and also to those recent fresh claims of doom about the pending impact of Ross River Fever. In both cases it is administrators and executives using the very same tactics as Trump, to extrapolate figures from short term fluctuations to garnish funding / support. That is not to say governments shouldn't act, but they shouldn't panic either, I wish they would report the facts and not the cherry picked facts.