The Biden Administration: Sophistry in Motion
Equivocation is the name of the game.
by Frank Schell
July 30, 2022, 12:15 AM
Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.”
– John Adams
The Biden administration has mastered sophistry, the use of ostensibly logical but erroneous arguments that are intended to deceive — or at least bamboozle.
First, on Thursday the Bureau of Economic Analysis confirmed that second-quarter gross domestic product contracted by 0.9 percent. As first-quarter GDP contracted by 1.6 percent, we now have evidence of what one hopes is a mild recession. Two successive quarters of contraction have been the accepted definition of a recession since 1974, as then defined by the late economist Julius Shiskin, whose career spanned the Census Bureau, Office of Management and Budget, and Bureau of Labor Statistics.
After saying earlier this week that there would be no recession, President Joe Biden said that it is “no surprise that the economy is slowing down.” And, not waiting for the data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis to go public, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he does not believe that the U.S. is in a recession. Because the labor market is strong and consumers are still spending money, the administration would contrive the argument that these conditions negate the idea that a recession is now upon us.
Adding to the bubbling brew of confusion, on Sunday Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that two quarters of contracting GDP is not the technical definition of a recession, but rather the common definition. By this logic, a thing can both be and not be at the same time. And in a stunning example of verbose equivocation, attempting to give cloud cover to the administration, Newsweek has added its own intellectual chaos.
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https://spectator.org/the-biden-administration-sophistry-in-motion/
