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The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy

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posted on Jul, 7 2011 @ 03:25 PM
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The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy: The term refers to the story of the Texas sharpshooter who shoots holes in the side of a barn and then draws a bull's-eye around the bullet holes.

I just read this article:
Debt Talks Turn to Social Security Cuts
and was stunned at the idea the government is tossing around in regards to redefining inflation as it relates to Cost of Living Adjustments.

There is a “pretty widely held” consensus among economists that the bureau’s methodology exaggerates inflation because it doesn’t fully account for how individuals respond to rising prices, said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics.

It accounts for those who buy cheaper brands of wine or steak when those prices rise, though not for those who opt instead for beer or chicken. That means it overestimates inflation, which leads to cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries, veterans and federal retirees that are bigger than necessary to maintain their purchasing power. It also affects the number of Americans who qualify for food stamps and other aid to the poor with eligibility criteria tied to federal poverty guidelines.

It means the thresholds at which higher income tax rates begin to apply to individual taxpayers rise faster than necessary to prevent so-called “bracket creep,” which means less tax revenue pouring into the Treasury.

The chained index accounts for the belt-tightening chicken eaters and beer drinkers. Over the past decade, the alternative index has grown more slowly than the current inflation measure by an average 0.3 percentage points a year, the CBO says.


So, let me see if I get this straight... They want to peg poverty thresholds, tax thresholds, & COLAs to a measure which is not so much an inflation figure as it is an expectation of the financial flexibility and resillience of "some" especially frugal consumers? Where in the blue hell does this measure stop? I mean holy hell, why stop with beer & chicken instead of wine & steak when you can clearly expect people to survive on RC cola & Ramen? This is absolutely an example of the government setting the stage for being able to abstractly set a "you should be able to make do with this..." payment and then paint the little bullseye around wherever they set that amount at, point to it, and say "See? It hits the target dead center. Yay us!"

The same could also be feasibly seen occuring in regards to taxation thresholds and poverty thresholds. Incredibly, the more resilient they believe the American citizen can be at the market, the more tax dollars they can eek out of them and the more benefits they can strip from them. This is absolutely an austerity package at this point and, dare I say it, it would be far better for gridlock to occur, forcing a default, than for this to get passed.



posted on Jul, 7 2011 @ 03:43 PM
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The spin is already the most incredible part of all of these stories. I am sure somewhere someone is thinking Hitler was great because he got the economy of Germany back up and someone got a job.



posted on Jul, 7 2011 @ 03:48 PM
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to answer,

I mean holy hell, why stop with beer & chicken instead of wine & steak when you can clearly expect people to survive on RC cola & Ramen?
this statement from your post, it is simple; We, the poor, are eating steak and wine in their eyes; We have RC cola & Ramen and, therefore we are not poor, for if we were, were would eat just rice and drink rice flavored hot water. you think i am joking i am not. see if you can get by on 200$ for 2, let a lone 1



 
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