At the Pump, Grasping at Straws

Tom Finnerty03 Dec, 2021 < 1 Min Read
Let them make solar panels.

Score one for Joe Biden and the Democratic Party:

As the official twitter account of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee shows above, Joltin' Joe has successfully turned around the elevated gas prices that have been bedeviling his administration and dragging down his poll numbers. Looks like smooth sailing ahead, perhaps with an increased seat count in the upcoming mid-terms! Might as well call off the 2024 election, because Biden already has it in the bag.

Except... if you look a little closer at this chart, maybe it isn't all that impressive. First of all, the Y axis isn't showing price changes in dimes or even pennies. It's showing them in fractions of cents. Consequently, in the two weeks depicted in the graph above, the average price of gasoline went down by all of two cents. Which is to say, almost not at all.

Apparently what happened here, as Abigail Marone helpfully illustrates on Twitter, is that heterodox liberal commentator Matt Yglesias sarcastically tweeted out the above graph (sans numbers) with the comment "Gas prices steadily falling since Biden signed the infrastructure bill and fixed inflation." White House Chief of Staff (and de facto president) Ron Klain saw the tweet and, assuming it was legit, liked it and fed it to the DCCC as if it actually meant something. Which it doesn't.

All of which is to say, 1) We're led by idiots who, 2) Can't understand graphs or statistics (cf. our national Covid response), and 3) as the 2024 elections near, the Dems are getting desperate.

Tom Finnerty writes from New England and Ontario.

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One comment on “At the Pump, Grasping at Straws”

  1. Whaddya bet the 2 cent drop was more than offset by inflation? It costs 2 cents less of a dollars worth a nickel less. So it’s still an increase…

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