Math: Rick Sanotorum's greatest foe.

[SirNitram]

Transcripted this a bit ago, didn't post it yet due to forgetfulness.

SANTORUM: [Obama] passed a huge stimulus package that now we know, over the past two quarters, has actually cost American jobs, and that’s from the report of his own administration. They claimed in December that, uh, by the end of last year that they created 280 million jobs, and now they’re saying that they created only 240 million jobs. So look, in this, you’re talking about huge increases in spending.

ALI VELSHI: Senator, I’m going to ask you to restate that, I’ve never heard that in my life. Tell me again, what you just said.

SANTORUM: If you look at the report that came out on Friday, the President’s own economic advisers said that the jobs stimulus package actually created fewer jobs over the period of time, since the uh, since the stimulus package went in place than it did when they reported back in December. In other words, there’s 30 million less jobs as a result of the stimulus package.

VELSHI: That’s not a loss of jobs, Senator, that’s a smaller aggregation of jobs. You can’t go on a campaign, a national campaign with this kind of math Senator. It’s just incorrect…I know you’ve got a lot of interviews to do. You might want to check that math.

First off, obviously, 280 - 240 = 40, not thirty. So he fails math. Then he fails reading. Then, to top it off, is the insane numbers. The civilian workforce is, to my knowledge, less than 175 million people.

[lance]

I heard that the stimulus created a shit ton of jobs oversees.

[Rahvin]

First off, obviously, 280 - 240 = 40, not thirty. So he fails math. Then he fails reading. Then, to top it off, is the insane numbers. The civilian workforce is, to my knowledge, less than 175 million people.

Isn't the entire population of the US just over 300 million, total?

[Broomstick]

Just shy of 309 million as of the 2010 Census, so yeah, close enough.

[Serafina]

Just shy of 309 million as of the 2010 Census, so yeah, close enough.

Great You got full employment then! In fact you have such an abundance of jobs that even many children and elderly are working! And to think that before the stimulus, just 1/5th of the population was employed!

Yeah, this guy is really dumb if he takes these numbers seriously for even a second - unless we really ARE talking about foreign jobs (why they should matter to such a right-wing nationalist is beyond me) or we're talking about a shitload of temporary jobs (as in "i mow the lawn today and help with the roof tomorrow, that's 2 separate jobs").

[Simon_Jester]

It's just the usual habitual bullshitting. The basic strategy of much of politics is to repeat your talking points in as many ways as possible, always hitting a slightly different note. It's not so important, tactically, whether there's any substance to what you're saying any one time. The power of the technique lies in repetition- in telling people over and over that the stimulus doesn't work and Obama can't beat the recession, that Obama is to blame for the recession and that the stimulus is a waste of money, that Obama wants the recession so he can bring about socialism in the US and that the stimulus is meant to make the American economy dependent on stimulus money from the government so that Obama can raise taxes on hard-working people...

And so on. By saying this over and over, if you can do it in a moderately persuasive manner, you get to shift the ideological equivalent of the Overton window in your favor. People stop thinking you're a nut and start thinking "well, what if he's right?" The question in the average citizen's mind evolves from "is A responsible for B" to "how much is A responsible for B," and then to "what should we do about A's responsibility for B?"

But this is a long-term strategy, and it relies on repetition, not crystal-clear logos. So for a politician to pull random numbers out of his hat and throw them into the speech in such an illiterate fashion is hardly unusual, though it's certainly a sign that he's not trying very hard.

[aerius]

But this is a long-term strategy, and it relies on repetition, not crystal-clear logos. So for a politician to pull random numbers out of his hat and throw them into the speech in such an illiterate fashion is hardly unusual, though it's certainly a sign that he's not trying very hard.

And you know what? It'll work, because the average American either can't do math or is too damn lazy to do math.

[The Spartan]

Or "knows what he meant".

[Steven Snyder]

Not intended to be a factual statement.

[Simon_Jester]

And you know what? It'll work, because the average American either can't do math or is too damn lazy to do math.

I truly don't think this is unique to America.

[aerius]

Of course not, we have people up here who can't solve X(0.01)=$1000, X being the amount of money they'd need to spend to realize a claimed $1000 savings on sales tax. The average family doesn't even have that much gross income, yet they all voted for the idiots who gave them that 1% sales tax break.

[Slacker]

I vaguely recall the stimulus being responsible for something on the order of 2.8 or 2.4 million jobs. So maybe Santorum just fiddled with the decimal place a bit. *facepalm*

[someone_else]

They claimed in December that, uh, by the end of last year that they created 280 million jobs, and now they’re saying that they created only 240 million jobs. ... In other words, there’s 30 million less jobs as a result of the stimulus package.

I'm gonna stare in awe at this for a moment.

And this is the guy supposed to go against Obama?

He is trying hard to look worse than Palin. Or better, depending from the point of view.

[Patrick Degan]

Rick Insantorum is like the James Gregory character in The Manchurian Candidate, who was coached on which number of Communists in the Federal government to make up when questioned by the press, and when he couldn't remember what was agreed on by his wife and handlers, just took a figure from the label off a nearby bottle of Heinz 57 ketchup.

[Chirios]

They claimed in December that, uh, by the end of last year that they created 280 million jobs, and now they’re saying that they created only 240 million jobs. ... In other words, there’s 30 million less jobs as a result of the stimulus package.

I'm gonna stare in awe at this for a moment.

And this is the guy supposed to go against Obama?

He is trying hard to look worse than Palin. Or better, depending from the point of view.

Yeah, like it's been said earlier in this topic, if they had created 240 million jobs that would be pretty much everyone of working age in the country. Which would be good. That said, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, guess that he was pretty tired and made an understandable mistake.

[mingo]

This may be a problem for him, but Rick "Please don't Google my name" Santorum has another BIG one.

[Coalition]

Rick Insantorum is like the James Gregory character in The Manchurian Candidate, who was coached on which number of Communists in the Federal government to make up when questioned by the press, and when he couldn't remember what was agreed on by his wife and handlers, just took a figure from the label off a nearby bottle of Heinz 57 ketchup.

Good thing the cleaning crew put the Formula 409 bottle away.

[The Yosemite Bear]

wouldn't that mean that even my neice and nephews would be employed and they are still in grade school...