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Comment by mensetmanusman | Hacker News Reader

My favorite DC sound bite:

"In the fall of 1972, President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection." - Hugo Rossi

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> President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection.

I can't think of a more fitting jerk.

(though arguably Nixon was actually talking about a fourth derivative (of price)...)

Aw, snap. Amusing thread topped off with a good math joke. Almost wish it hadn't been set in italics, though I may have missed it otherwise.

By my thinking:

- price is 0th derivative - inflation is 1st derivative (change in average price) - rate of increase in inflation is 2nd derivative - that rate of increase is decreasing — 3rd derivative

So I think Nixon is talking about a negative 3rd derivative of price. Am I missing one?

Ah, my thinking was that since the "rate of increase" is something changing, Nixon was taking about the next derivative being non-zero. :)

In my country we have a lowered VAT under certain circumstances. We had a new government tell us they were "reducing the VAT discount to half", just to avoid the word "raise", since they had promised that no taxes would be raised. I was reminded of that quote then -- in this case they were using the multiplication of two negatives rule.

- Civilization V

- mensetmanusman

Biden said a similar thing recently, bragging that the (high) rate of inflation was holding steady.

When? He bragged in July when the MoM rate was zero and the YoY rate fell by half a percent. I can't find him bragging anywhere that the rate is holding steady though.

Not the one gp was referencing, but here’s the Reagan quote pretty much verbatim from Biden:

“we are making progress in slowing the rate of price increases.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/12/biden-says-cpi-inflation-rep...

>0.9% in October, 0.8% in November and 0.5% in December, according to the Labor Department.

Definitely similarly tone deaf, but in this case he was bragging about the second derivative, not the third - prices continued to increase, but the rate of increase (inflation) was indeed falling.

Errmm? He says “we are making progress in slowing the rate of price increases”.

(making progress in (slowing the (rate of price increases)))

3 ————————— 2 ————— 1 ———————————

The question is what you think “progress” is doing in that sentence. Slowing the rate => 2nd deriv is decreasing but progress, to me, implies that third deriv is what is being pointed at. 2nd deriv would be “we are slowing” to me.

I’m not sure what inflation number you’re looking at, but CPI for Oct/Nov/Dec of 2021 was: 6.2%, 6.8%, 7%

Rate of increase in prices = inflation = first derivative of prices. Slowing the rate of increase in prices = lowering inflation = second derivative. I wouldn't interprete 'making progress in lowering the rate of increase' as 'lowering the rate of increase of the rate of increase' which is basically how you'd have to read that to get to the third derivative. As the article points out, Biden was talking about MoM inflation, I quoted the numbers there for those months. They're in the article.

"Making progress" here is saying that they are doing it but their job is not done. It's not taking a derivative.

"Making progress in slowing" is the same as "slowing", basically.

They are celebrating a decrease in the rate of price increases.

For Nixon, there was still an increasing of the rate of price increases.

> When? He bragged in July when the MoM rate was zero and the YoY rate fell by half a percent.

I think it was MoM rate that was -0.5%, YoY rate was still above 8%.

The MoM rate (the amount prices increased in July) was zero (down from 1.3% in June), not -0.5%, meaning that prices stayed the same. If it had been -0.5%, that would have meant prices decreased in July by half a percent. The YoY rate is what fell by 0.6% (not 0.5% like I thought), meaning that prices had risen a total of 8.5% since July 2021, a decrease from 9.1% in June (vs. June 2021).

He did so on 60 Minutes about a month ago:

https://youtu.be/HfNnuQOHAaw?t=15

Can't tell if he's trying to say that it only went up a little in September ("was 8.2 before"), but if he is then he's wrong - the YoY rate has come down every month since July.[1] So we still haven't passed the second derivative (which he did brag about in January apparently).

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273418/unadjusted-monthl...

That's a completely different level.

Easy brag: Inflation is low.

Hard brag: Inflation is high but not getting worse. <- Biden was here.

Desperate brag: Inflation is getting worse every month, but the amount it gets worse is dropping. <- Nixon was here.

That would be the 2nd (derivative) right?

I believe they're counting inflation itself as a derivative

Inflation is the first derivative. The rate of increase of inflation is the 2nd derivative. The idea that the rate of increase of deflation is itself decreasing would then be the 3rd derivative (think "the rate of the rate of increase of inflation is negative")

money = money(t)

inflation = d money / dt

rate of increase of inflation = d^2 money / dt^2

rate of change in rate of increase of inflation = d^3 money / dt^3

rate of increase of inflation was decreasing = sign(d^3 money / dt^3)

Huh?

I parse it as,

money = money(t)

inflation = d money / dt

rate of change (increase or decrease) on inflation = d^2 money / dt^2

^^^^ and this is the one w/ a low value

It doesn't have a low value, but it itself is decreasing, thereby referring to money's third derivative.

Aaaaaah, OK, I see it now.

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