Layers of fact checking

Business Insider ran a story claiming that the US sucks.

Politicususa ran with it because it fit the narrative.

“The United States currently ranks thirty-fourth(34th) out of the thirty-four(34) members of the OECD in regards to spending on social programs, DEAD LAST.

The amount the United States spends is currently only 7.2% of our gross domestic product on programs that make up our social contract with the American people.

Remember a year ago when the conservative deficit hawks were warning that if the United States doesn’t start looking at our social programs we would end up like Greece?

They told us the reason Greece was in financial trouble was due to their social programs and if we, the United States didn’t want to become like Greece, we needed to cut back on our social expenditures. Well Greece spends 21.3% on social programs, 14.1% more than the United States does. That is a big difference!”

The only problem is the story is flat out wrong.

It’s supposedly based on the OECD’s numbers on social spending as a percentage of GDP. If you follow the links in the stories you eventually find this spreadsheet.

Where you can plainly see that the US, in 2007, spent 16.2 percent on social spending as defined by OECD. Hmmm… WTF Business Insider?

Turns out it was Mexico that spent 7.2%, not the US.

Oops.

This entry was posted in Stupid MSM. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Layers of fact checking

  1. Bubblehead Les says:

    Let us see if any of those MSM idiots still know what a definition is. Socialism at its very core IMPLIES Massive Social Spending. Those Nations that have Massive Social Spending ARE Socialist Nations. Karl Marx tells us in the Communist Manifesto that to get to a Communist State, a Nation MUST first go through Socialism. So all Socialists, whether they admit it or not, are really trying to get more control over the Means of Production, so that they can take the Wealth generated by a Capitalist Entity (Factory, Bank, Wall Street, et. al.) and give it away to those THEY deem worthy. This ensures their continued control over the Masses, who, if left to their own devices, could become Independent of such Massive Spending. But this Independence means there is no need for Big Gov’t. Social Spending, and all the Socialist Political Elites would lose their Power, Wealth and Privileges.

    So when one sees such articles as this, it’s just Propaganda by the American Socialists who are saying, “See, we’re not as bad as the Other Guy, so don’t touch my Wealth, Power and Privilege, and, actually, we should be more like the rest of the World and Spend More!”

    Anyone who thinks this is just Capitalistic Paranoia, please listen to Obama’s Budget Proposals from a couple of days ago.

    Know Thy Enemy.

  2. Old NFO says:

    They don’t need no stinkin facts… if it doesn’t fit their agenda, they just lie!

  3. DaddyBear says:

    Apparently spreadsheets are hard to read through rose colored glasses.

    And since when are we supposed to aspire to be like Finland?

Comments are closed.