Tuesday, October 01, 2002
Arguments for the mathematically challenged: on the drive in to work this morning, I heard Financial Times columnist Amity Shales make the argument that tariffs hurt workers as much as help them. While I generally support free trade, I couldn¡¦t help but notice that Ms. Shales engaged in some interesting use of numbers to support her position. To support her contention that tariffs hurt the poor more than the rich, she mentioned that a think tank has estimated that the average poor worker loses one week¡¦s salary per year because of tariff-induced higher prices on goods as compared to the wealthy who lose ¡§less than one percent.¡¨ Now I am the first to confess that math is not my strong suit but even I can see that "one week's salary" = 1/52 = 1.92%. Compare that to an undefined "less than one percent" and the chasm between the impact of tariffs on the rich and the poor doesn't seem quite so yawning. Few things bother me more than when people use flawed or misleading arguments to support positions I also support.
