« The Harding Debate | Main | What He Said » Projections09 Apr 2008 02:42 pm
There's something brilliant about this slide from General Petraeus' presentation. We all know that straight-line extrapolations from past trends aren't a good way to reason. But it's a bit fishy when your future projection follows a completely different trend from the past. Of course, how much we appropriate is under our control, so we can just do this if we like. But I'm not sure what it's supposed to show. Comments (24)
Dear God! He actually had the "courage" to present this slide. A slide like this would get you laughed out of (I was going to say board meeting, but) any friggin' meeting, anywhere, anytime, any planet, any universe. What a fucking joke. Let me guess the MSM just lapped it up. "Give us more our conquering hero!" I think we're in need of another full page ad... "But I'm not sure what it's supposed to show." Apparently that everyone is a blithering idiot... 
I have a similar graph on my garage wall at home. The amount of money my company keeps goes steadily down. The amount they give me rises dramatically. Yeah, it's gonna happen. Fer sure. Uh-huh! You'll see, you just wait, I'm gonna be rich. Look at the graph!
Also: we have some data about 2008 U.S. expenditures. Does spending during the first quarter support the drastic downward plot that the graph suggests?
Wait a fucking minute! 2007 was "da surge". How in the fucking hell does our "execution in billions" (what a brilliant euphemism) go down?
Glenn Kessler does a masterful job of deconstructing some of Petraeus's charts, including this one here
It looks like they tweaked the line a bit for 08-09 so that it wouldn't be quite so obvious someone just drew a straight line.
Did Petraeus truly, in the middle of 2008, present a chart projecting what would happen during 2007 and through 2008? He should be able to plug in some hard numbers, I should think.
Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% in 1976? If these trends continue...Aayyyyy
The evidence presented in this chart -- some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail -- must prove to anyone that the U.S. is clearly winning the war in Iraq. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise.
I too am curious as to where Iraq is going to get the billions of dollars they'll be contributing to the war effort.
One thing I think is interesting is what's missing from this graph (though it may be elsewhere): total expenditures. Eyeballing it, it look approximately like (in billions): 7, 7, 7.5, 11.5, 11, 14. So a year from now, in 2009, the cost of maintaining security in Iraq is going to be 125% of the cost in 2008. And yet there's the claim that things are getting better? In what sense, given that it's going to cost a lot more to keep the peace a year from now?
From the Kessler analysis: The U.S. expenditures are just for the Iraq Security Forces Fund, which provides for the training and equipping of Iraqi forces; the line on the chart does not include the billions of dollars spent on the salaries of U.S. troops assisting the Iraqis and the cost of the extensive logistics that the U.S. military provides to Iraqi forces. If you leave out rent, food, alcohol, cable-phone-internet, and other leisure expenses, and only consider the amount I spend on laundry detergent, my personal monthly budget is looking great! Granted, my spending on laundry detergent doubled recently, but I have this unexplained hunch that it's suddenly going to plummet for mysterious reasons. Want me to draw you a graph??
Petraeus = Bush sock puppet. The man just establishes this with every word out of his mouth - and every chart. Serving Pentagon officers lie when they open their mouth. They're as bad as Microsoft employees.
I refuse to believe a US general actually put up that graph in front of the US Sentate. It's a joke, like from the Onion or something, right? Disco Stu, freakin' hillarious.
The truly amazing thing is that those lines are dotted, rather than being solid like the earlier ones, with a fine-print note at the bottom saying they're projections.
$11 billion for 20 million Iraqis equals $500 per person (note that's per person, NOT per taxpayer). Anyone got the median income in Iraq? Methinks $500 per person is ridiculous.
First question from the angry pseudo senator/congressman/lounge singer from Iowa: "Does this here thing, this "chartchamacallit" include the price of gaaasoeleeene?" Here's your ad Move-on, free of charge. A full two page spread with a blow up of this graph and in BIG, BOLD 150 pt font (actual font size may vary given chart and page dimensions) Ariel (I have a thing for Ariel), the question: "DO THEY REALLY THINK WE ARE THAT STUPID?"
Oops, apparently lost some IQ points squinting at that monstrosity. That'd be "Arial".
To go completely against the grain of all the other comments, I'm going to actually look at what information is presented in this chart and see if there is any justification for the projections... +) Iraqi expenditure in 2007 exceeds U.S expenditure during any single year for the first time. +) The green line represents the trend of Iraqi expenditure. If Iraqi expenditure goes up, projecting U.S. expenditure decrease is perfectly reasonable. The total expenditure seems to have remained relatively consistent, except for the surge. -) For the solid lines on this chart to make sense the year labels need to represent what? July-October of that year, definitely not January. Is this chart "wishful thinking"? almost certainly, but really the controlling trend on this graph is the Iraqi expenditure, and it's wishful thinking that it will continue, but conceivable. Maybe not a great chart but certainly not a completely bogus piece of work.
"If Iraqi expenditure goes up, projecting U.S. expenditure decrease is perfectly reasonable." Perfectly reasonable if it were true. I contend that it is not true, Jake H. has shown that it is not true and therefore it can be considered bogus. "If these 'projected' trends continue", weren't you listening to Disco Stu?
Is Demetri Martin making the Pentagon's graphs? I would have been laughed out of eight-grade science class if I made a chart like this.
The total expenditure seems to have remained relatively consistent, except for the surge. Also, as I observed above, except for the 25% bump from 2008 to 2009. Am I missing something?
Comments closed April 23, 2008. |
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Heads in the Sand
Just out of idle curiosity--does Iraq even have a functioning tax system to create government revenue? Or is the 4-billion-and-change the chart shows for 2007 "execution" ultimately paid by the US taxpayer?
Posted by James Gary | April 9, 2008 3:05 PM