The Abuse of Statistics in Action

Please look at the following graph and tell me what is wrong with this picture:



Can't see it?

Well the Washington Post did and you can check out their article here. Or you can read on.

Even someone with the most basic understanding of statistics can see where this graph goes wrong. Let me use the example from the above mentioned Washington Post article. If one person increases the national debt from 10 to 20 they are said to have increased it by 100% but then if another person increases the debt from 20 to 30 they are only increasing it by 50%. Beginning to see the problem?

A better way to see who increased the debt is to show the increase in dollars, and even more so to divide it over the length of the president's term. Reagan and Bush the younger may have increased by greater dollar amount but they also served longer terms that both the Elder Bush and Obama so far. Here are a few numbers for you:

President        Start of term      End of term     Total increase  Average yearly Increase
Reagen               $994B               $2.9T                 $1.9T                   $238B
Elder Bush         $2.9T                $4.4T                 $1.5T                    $375B
Clinton               $4.4T                $5.7T                 $1.3T                   $163B       
Younger Bush    $5.7T                $10.4T               $4.7T                    $588B
Obama               $10.4T              $11.8T(2010)     $1.4T                    $700B

Now these are extremely rough estimates that do not take into account the state of the economy, world affairs, war, and certainly not inflation but you see a very different trend. Clinton, a democrat, is by far the best. But it is Obama, another democrat, who is by far the worse, closely followed by the younger Bush. We need to realize that Obama has increased the national debt more in 2 years than Clinton did in his entire 8 years in office.

This graph is laughable. And the fact that it is taken seriously by people on social media sites is even more so. It is sad to see that Americans have fallen so far.