With Enough Spin...
...Almost anything can be made to sound believable!
Recently while on Facebook, I saw something a friend had posted that caught my attention. The post was a chart that showed a breakdown of the budget and debt of the government. All of the figures in the chart were adjusted by removing several zeros from the end of each figure, transforming the chart to something that resembled a household budget. The resemblance was limited to the fact that the numbers were in the thousands and not billions or trillions of dollars. That's where the similarities ended. The numbers, if they represented a real household budget, it would be a household long overdue for a visit to the local bankruptcy attorney!
This chart is nothing new. I had seen it a few times in the past. It really does put things into perspective regarding the federal budget and deficit spending. The numbers in the chart were as follows:
Annual Income: $21,700.00
Annual Expenses: $38,200.00
New Credit Card Debt $16,500.00
Total Credit Card Debt: $142,710.00
Total Budget Cuts: $385.00
Pretty alarming when put into this perspective!
What was different this time was that someone had posted an interesting comment about the chart. He posted that this chart was something created to sensationalize the current state of the economy, that you can't compare the economy of the government with that of a household. Following his comment was a link to an article that I was sure would attempt to back up his opinion and may have even been the basis for that opinion. Being curious how anyone could put a positive spin on these numbers, I had to read it.
It was a well written article that brought up some valid points but, overall seemed to minimize the need for concern over the economy. It showed how, for the past couple hundred years, we have experienced many highs and lows in the economy and have usually had deficits. The thinking seemed to be that we've always gotten things back on track in the past and there's no reason to think that things would be any different this time around. What a relief!
Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple. I then thought about some of the things that weren't part of the article- All of the jobs that are no longer in this country but have been shipped overseas. (Thanks NAFTA!) That we're a shadow of what we used to be with regard to manufacturing. That after the great depression we were able to produce our way back to prosperity due to our strong industrial base. That the US dollar may not always continue to be as in demand as it was in the past. Somehow these important pieces of information were left out.
The problem with trying to put a positive spin on numbers is that numbers are not subjective. They're not a matter of popular opinion- Adding two plus two will always yield the same result. Always! While it may be possible to cite reasons to be optimistic, the numbers don't lie. It would be nice to think that we'd get spending under control before things get worse. It seems doubtful that will happen until people are at least willing to acknowledge that there's a problem. Just my two cents. ( $1.00 adjusted for inflation )
