"In the fall of 1972, President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection." - Hugo Rossi
> President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection.
I can't think of a more fitting jerk.
(though arguably Nixon was actually talking about a fourth derivative (of price)...)
- price is 0th derivative
- inflation is 1st derivative (change in average price)
- rate of increase in inflation is 2nd derivative
- that rate of increase is decreasing — 3rd derivative
So I think Nixon is talking about a negative 3rd derivative of price. Am I missing one?
In my country we have a lowered VAT under certain circumstances. We had a new government tell us they were "reducing the VAT discount to half", just to avoid the word "raise", since they had promised that no taxes would be raised. I was reminded of that quote then -- in this case they were using the multiplication of two negatives rule.
When? He bragged in July when the MoM rate was zero and the YoY rate fell by half a percent. I can't find him bragging anywhere that the rate is holding steady though.
Can't tell if he's trying to say that it only went up a little in September ("was 8.2 before"), but if he is then he's wrong - the YoY rate has come down every month since July.[1] So we still haven't passed the second derivative (which he did brag about in January apparently).
The MoM rate (the amount prices increased in July) was zero (down from 1.3% in June), not -0.5%, meaning that prices stayed the same. If it had been -0.5%, that would have meant prices decreased in July by half a percent. The YoY rate is what fell by 0.6% (not 0.5% like I thought), meaning that prices had risen a total of 8.5% since July 2021, a decrease from 9.1% in June (vs. June 2021).
>0.9% in October, 0.8% in November and 0.5% in December, according to the Labor Department.
Definitely similarly tone deaf, but in this case he was bragging about the second derivative, not the third - prices continued to increase, but the rate of increase (inflation) was indeed falling.
Errmm? He says “we are making progress in slowing the rate of price increases”.
(making progress in (slowing the (rate of price increases)))
3 ————————— 2 ————— 1 ———————————
The question is what you think “progress” is doing in that sentence. Slowing the rate => 2nd deriv is decreasing but progress, to me, implies that third deriv is what is being pointed at. 2nd deriv would be “we are slowing” to me.
I’m not sure what inflation number you’re looking at, but CPI for Oct/Nov/Dec of 2021 was: 6.2%, 6.8%, 7%
Rate of increase in prices = inflation = first derivative of prices. Slowing the rate of increase in prices = lowering inflation = second derivative. I wouldn't interprete 'making progress in lowering the rate of increase' as 'lowering the rate of increase of the rate of increase' which is basically how you'd have to read that to get to the third derivative. As the article points out, Biden was talking about MoM inflation, I quoted the numbers there for those months. They're in the article.
Inflation is the first derivative. The rate of increase of inflation is the 2nd derivative. The idea that the rate of increase of deflation is itself decreasing would then be the 3rd derivative (think "the rate of the rate of increase of inflation is negative")
"In the fall of 1972, President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection." - Hugo Rossi