LIES, DAMN LIES AND GOVERNMENTS

There is an old saying about lies, damn lies and statistics.

Many people attribute it to humorist Mark Twain. But Twain reportedly gave credit for its origination to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. A search of Disraeli's papers, however, showed no mention of it and, according to some, the saying didn't become popular until after Disraeli's death in 1881.

 In his autobiography, Chapters From My Autobiography, in 1906, Twain wrote:

Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'

A colleague who's very much still with us takes a little different twist. He says: "There are lies, damn lies and governments."

The incidents of governments getting caught with their tongues buried deep in the disinformation jar are too numerous to list. The Federal Reserve Bank is an independent central bank. The word independent is open to debate obviously, but for now we'll deploy a Paul Harvey and leave it for later. It relies heavily on statistics to spread its financial propaganda.

So that poses an interesting question: how much of those statistics are lies, how much damn lies and how much government just being government? 

One of the hidden dirty little secrets of the real estate bubble was the expected income from increased taxes owing to ballooning property evaluations. Way before the sandman turned out the lights, retirees in places like Henderson, Nevada were losing their properties because they couldn't pay their bloated tax bills. They were forced to move in other words.

Some might call it the obverse side of the phony "wealth effect." Individuals weren't the only ones feeling wealthier. So we're all those greedy, groveling little cities, counties and states, starving for more revenue they could squander.

Hybrid cars were suppose to be good for the environment. A bunch of greenies and some well-intentioned-frugal souls stepped up and purchased them, many at the behest of government-pushed advertising. It was PC all the way.

 Now they're apparently being rewarded for for their good intentions, especially if they live in Oregon, Washington or Nevada. We'll leave Vermont out because those folks went over the falls long ago. Two other states, Texas and Virginia, are considering similar legislation.

The rationale behind the move is hybrid owners use and benefit from roads built and maintained by gasoline taxes. Why should they ride free, an interesting point?  So why not start taxing them? Following that line, then, why should low-income folks who earn 10K or less pay no income tax? Don't they like the rest of us use and benefit from all the federally-sponsored infrastructures?

One other legislative group has been considering the idea, a mileage tax, since 2011, the US Congress. Now that's a tax-hungry group. As they say the trend is your friend until it isn't. With a little luck we can blame it all on climate change, a perfect example of lies, damn lies and governments.