A while back, we saluted Bruce Baker of Rutgers University as an extraordinary truth teller and demolisher of tall tales disguised as “research”
In this post, he reveals his pet peeve:
“Perhaps more than anything else, I hate it when pundits – who often have little clue what they are talking about to begin with, toss around big numbers with lots of zeros… or “illions” attached in order to make their ideological point.”
See the tweet he refers to.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The pension thieves in Illinois have repeatedly hammered the point that Illinois has a $100 Billion (that’s Billion, with a capital B!!!) unfunded pension liability. Fred Klonsky posted something pointing out that, even to the extent that number may be true, that’s $100 billion over the course of 30 years, during which time the State of Illinois should take in over $180 *trillion* in revenues. Kinda puts it in context, no?
Can you point to a source for that number? I could maybe see Illinois’s gross state product being $180 trillion over the next 30 years, but tax revenues?
Did I say tax revenues?
You said that over the course of 30 years “the State of Illinois should take in over $180 *trillion* in revenues.” Gross state product is a broad measure of total economic output, and there’s quite a bit of difference between it and the amount of money collected by the state government to pay its bills.
As Illinois’s current annual budget is about $36 billion and the state is also paying relatively high amounts to service its debt, $100 billion (or whatever the real number is) isn’t anything to sneeze at, regardless of how its amortized.
Fred had a great post today on the reasoning behind the recent pension shenanigans and the reasons for ignoring Matire’s pension suggestions.
Fred linked to Glen Brown’s blog:
http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2014/01/pension-reform-message-to-illinois.html
Great commentary. This is how we get people repeating the mantra that there is no point to “throwing more money at the schools.” I’d like some empirical evidence concerning schools that were awash in money at some point in history while not producing good results. Big numbers are meaningless without a context. The natural human reaction is to say, “whoa, that is a lot!”
“Of course, if the intent is to deceive and warp public opinion, then Smarick and others are right on target.”
Bingo
When pundits start throwing those big numbers out, I turn them off.