Fun with numbers

RFK Jr. (via Aaron Rupar), countering the (factual) charge that it’s impossible to have the price of a drug drop by 600%:

“I said, ‘Well, if the drug was $100 and you raise the price to $600, that would be a 600% rise.’ Well, if it drops from $600 to $100, that’s a 600% savings.”

Well, no. You are either a craven dissembler or a craven dissembler and a mathematical illiterate. (Since you’re already a craven dissembler.)

If the price goes from $100 to $600, that’s a 500% increase. What is 100% of 100? 100. Thus a 100% increase = $200, and so on.

If the price goes from $600 to $100, that’s an 83.4% decrease. 100 is 16.6% of 600.

It’s worth watching the short clip in which Kennedy defends the current occupant’s wizardry with numbers. You can see the occupant smile and nod and say “Right,” as other syncophants smile and nod.

[“Mathematical illiterate” is more fun that calling him an innumerate. Either way, I’m so sick of these people.]