How to lie with statistics
A year ago there were 9 regulars sitting around doing Stoli shots at the bar at Trump’s Old Post Office hotel in DC. And, Trump was in the back of the bar (in the booth that’s reserved for mob bosses) sipping diet cokes and collecting tribute envelopes from his foreign hotel guests.
A year ago, the 9 regulars sitting at the bar made an average of $100 per day. And Trump’s total take averaged $100,000 per day (taking into consideration his White House paycheck, his TV show royalties, his cut from money laundering, and all his bribes, kickbacks, and other graft).
It’s now a year later and the same 9 regulars are back today, sitting at the bar at Trump’s DC gang-headquarters. But this year, instead of doing Stoli shots, they’re drowning their sorrows in a mug of beer they’re sharing 9 ways because none of them got an annual pay raise. All 9 of them are still making the exact same thing they were making a year ago, an average of $100 per day.
But Trump is also at the bar today, at his usual mob boss booth in the back. He’s in a good mood. He’s celebrating (chugging diet cokes, two at a time, one in each of tiny hands) the $250,000 performance bonuses he’s just collected from each of his Russian, Saudi, Turkish, and coal industry handlers.
Adding that million bucks to the rest of his total take increased his daily average for 2018 from $100,000 per day to $103,229 per day.
Trump stands up, applauds himself to get everyone’s attention, and shouts out to the other 9 bar customers, “We’re winning bigly. I’m the best President there’s ever been because our average annual pay just increased by 3.2%”.