Joe PagLIARulo Radio: The ‘Three Rs’ Edition

Joe PagLIARulo decided to get into a little math this morning.  It was a bad idea.  While doing a lame fisking of President Obama’s interview on 60 Minutes last night, Joe got bent about who the president said would benefit from extending the Bush era tax cuts.  The president stated that millionaires and billionaires would get the biggest breaks.  Joe hates this and responds:

Not true.  Now, the whole idea that the people that are getting the biggest breaks are the rich is a lie.  Actual dollar amounts, of course, they’re getting a bigger break cuz they pay way more money into taxes, but percentage-wise, it’s not even close.  Listen, if you pay 10% tax rate right now on your income tax federally, you’re going to pay 15% starting January 1st.  Last time I checked, 10% to 15% was a 50% increase in taxes.  50% more.  The evil rich, they’re gonna go from 35% to 39.6, which is an 11% increase in taxes.  Now, let’s see, who’s getting the bigger break?  The people getting an 11% break or the people getting a 50% break?  I would suggest — actually a 33% break if you were at 15 going back to 10.  I don’t want to get all convoluted by throwing a bunch of percentages and numbers out there, but simple math tells you the people who are going to see — if nothing happens and everybody goes back to the pre-Bush era tax rates, you’re gonna see a 50% increase if you are in the 10% bracket.  If you are in the 36% (garbled) 35% bracket  up to 39.6%, you’re going to see an 11% increase.  Let’s stop the bull.  Let’s stop the lying.  OK?  It’s just not true.

I just had to write in.  It’s clear what he was trying to do, but it was also clear that he was none too sure about his math.

Me:  Joe, it’s a good thing you are in radio and not an accountant.
Let me show you how silly your earlier *math* is.
If there were no flag burnings one year and one flag burning the next
year, according to your *math*, there was a 100% increase in flag
burning.
Which is a misrepresentation, just like your calculations are.
Sincerely,
Michelle

PagLIARulo dutifully responds!:

either bring what I said incorrectly.. or get over it Michelle.  My
numbers are real.. you and the president are on a fishing expedition.

Me:  Here’s what you said Joe — people who are in the middle class benefit more than people at the top and you explained it this way — 15 minus 10 is 5 and 5 is 50% of 10.  36 minus 33 is 3 and 3 is 11% of 33.
I compared that to 1 minus 0 is 1. and 1 is 100% of 1.
So, what did I get wrong?
Sincerely,
Michelle

I was just ball-parking this, as I didn’t hear exactly all of what he said, but I only needed to hear the 50% part to know what he was trying to do, and therefore make my point.

PagLIARulo:

your math is off.. what I said was an increase of 10 to 15 (which will happen if the cuts aren’t extended) is a 50 percent increase.  Going from 15 to 10 was a 33 percent cut.  going from 35 to 39.6 is an 11 percent increase.  Have some coffee and wake up a bit before emailing me .. k?

PagLIARulo fires a CYA (but is it enough?):

btw.. the increase for the top tier is actually 13.6 — thanks for the help!

Me:  You said, “either bring what I said incorrectly, or get over it.”  So I did.What do you want from me Joe?!?!!?!?!?!?!!?!  And your math is still off.

Sincerely,
Michelle

I took advantage of his ambiguous adverb to chum the water and have a little fun.  I’ve read that in a previous job, Joe was considered to be a sort of grammar cop, but I’m not seeing it.

PagLIARulo get miffed:

no math is dead on.. and I corrected myself..

lemme ask you a serious question.. what exactly is that you have a problem with?  Is it that I’m so right so often that it bothers you?  Do you want people to have an 11 or 13 or 50 percent increase in taxes?  Would that make you happy?

what exactly, Michelle, is your actual issue?  You know conservative values are why we’re the one super power left in the world.. and the most free and liberated people?

is that an issue for you?

get to the real issue, Michelle.

j

I don’t think he gets my point, which for me is a good thing.  And running to the “American Exceptionalism” point is very weak.  It’s like asking, “Why aren’t you a patriot?”  Ugh.

At this point, Joe decides to rant about me on the air:

By the way, Michelle the liberal will not stop emailing me.  I mean she, I think she now records the program, and word for word tries to go through — I think she looks up every word I say in the dictionary — (with a fake voice says) well I don’t know that’s exactly the way it’s defined.

The other day she had a problem with me saying that I affected positive change on election day because I tried to educate the voters whether they voted liberal/democrat (sic) or conservative/republican, at least they had better ammunition going to the poll if they listened to my program.  She had a problem with that and then today I said if you had uhm if the tax cuts all expired — the Bush era tax cuts — that people paying 10% tax today would go up to 15% and I said that’s a 50% increase, which it is, now when they went from 15 to 10 they saw a 33% decrease, which it was, which is what I said.  I also said if people paying 35% today go up to 39.6%, it’s an 11% increase.  Well, I was actually wrong about that.  It’s almost a 14% increase.  Sorry, Michelle.  It’s actually worse than I said it would be, but you’re all 100% of this and 50% of that and a bunch of convoluted numbers.  Listen, I stand by what I said cuz you know what?  We’re going to see a massive increase in taxes for no other reason than we’ve got an expanded large government that needs to check itself now, especially after this midterm election.

I just want to say that no dictionary was used in the composition of this blog post.

I wrote back:

Me:  And then you flubbed it completely on the air.  Joe, I don’t have a problem, I just find you hilarious.  So, when I ask you if you have any proof that you influenced (or affected) the elections and you say no, I get to laugh.  Or when you get all turned around trying to do math that is beyond you, I laugh even more.

And if you are interested in what my “issues” are, you can, as they say, “read my blog” 😉 .

Sincerely,
Michelle
calle viena

I ask you, was that too subtle?  All of those guys (they are all pasty white guys) on KPRC flog their stupid non-blogs and Facebook pages RELENTLESSLY.

Patronizing PagLIARulo:

Ur so cute Michelle. Dont care if u laugh or cry Michelle as long as u keep listening. Thx for helping my ratings!!

Help his ratings?  I’m not part of the system that measures that and if he counts a page hit while I write these blogs, well rock on, brother!

I know I don’t have to explain the math to you, my dear readers, but just in case Joe manages to navigate his way here, I want to lay it out clearly.

He decided to look at percentages in a misleading way, which is why I used the 0+1 = 100% increase example.  That sounds like a lot.  And that was Joe’s point.  He wants his listeners to think that 50% of a small number is much larger than 11% or 13.6% of a large number.  (Using Joe’s math, the answer is actually closer to 12%, or 11.61%.)  By ignoring the base number, it *sounds* like the middle class are making out like bandits and the poor top 1-2% of income earners are just barely scraping by.  Another way of showing how misleading this is is by using a retail sales example.  Let’s say something is on sale at 10% off.  Then there is a subsequent sale  taking off an additional 5%.  Well, Joe would say that’s 15% off, but in reality, it isn’t.

And seriously, listening to PagLIARulo always makes me think that he must give himself a headache.

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