Journalists can't math

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/03/06/msnbcs_brian_williams_new_york_times_editorial_board_member_mara_gay_five_divided_by_three_equals_one_million.html

Do you trust these people informing you about how politicians spend your money?

Sigh... Don't get me started on our mathematical illiteracy. My favorite example is that minimum wage/price of milk meme that somehow everyone shares without giving a moment's thought.

Lmao sad. Although it is worse when our leaders make similar idotic mistakes on a daily basis like Trump.

@zaryia: This is pretty bad, imo. Either this went through proper vetting and represents multiple failures in the process, or it simply wasn't vetted. Journalists need to hold themselves to a higher standard than this.

@vl4d_l3nin: And oh dear, I hope the headline said enough. That was way off. At least if they provide the raw numbers used, you can do the math yourself and see that it is wrong. But I'll say that shouldn't really be necessary.

Care sharing or explaining?

And oh dear, I hope the headline said enough. That was way off.

The tax cuts are great, not the deficits.

Or maybe they are. Trump tacitly promised he was going to blow deficits so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If Bloomburg really cared about our country he would pay the debt off himself. Instead he blows over 10X the national debt on ads, according to MSNBC

Please provide a credible source that the tax cuts are what made the entire deficit.

Also, the logic on this board among democrats is amazing. The economy is booming = Obama, the deficit is bad = All Trump.

It´s almost as bad as the journalist who can´t do math.

Honestly I'm just going to chalk this up to an embarrassing brain fart. I wouldn't read too much into it.

@Jacanuk: I never said the tax cuts are blowing the deficits. Increasing defense, the farm bill, and 5 appropriation bills (largely welfare) in a year causing the countries longest shutdown are much more to blame. In the span of 2 years, those things alone costed several times more than ALL the tax cuts will over the next decade. Thing is, Trump said he was going to keep spending.

Some of you take so many things seriously these days...……..

The meme I was referring to is the one below. It's several years old now, but once or twice a year it crops up again and people can't help but spread it. I reference this particular example because it's so fraught with false assumptions and faulty math that it's hard to even know where to begin correcting it. I mean, look at this abomination.

@mattbbpl: Damn.

23% of 1.23$ is just above 28cents, so it is not like the milk is affordable to begin with.... But I guess that isn't important to the ones who made this.

That is such a bad meme.

Tell me about it. It's a math murder.

That article missed Mara Gay's tweet when she realized what she said,

the fact that she thinks she would need a calculator is stunning....

there's a story neil degreasse tyson tells in one of his books that i read a while back about how for some reason it's perfectly acceptable, even in "educated" company, to be math illiterate.

if you were with a group of people and someone wanted you to read something and you said you were never good at reading, they'd look at you like you're an idiot.

why is it accepted with basic math?

Fortunately that will change when Biden is president. That guy is sharp as a tack.

But may as well take the one who is a bit less dumb and will let advisers/staff take over the helm instead of trying to be King. Rather the one who knows he's dumb.

Nah, I think that was pretty clearly self-deprecating humor. I think this was something added at the last moment and it just slipped past everyone; one of those brain-fart type things. It is pretty humorous thinking of how many people it would've had to slip past to have the graphic ready, though.

Memes are pretty much the bottom of the barrel. A goldmine of misinformation and half-truths. Clickbaits of clickbaits.