Defence spending: does the party in power spell the difference?

[toyotatundra]

In a Macleans' article, John Geddes asks: is support for the military dependent on the party in power? Or has historical circumstance been responsible for the funding ups and downs?

With Canada pulling its fighting troops out of Kandahar this month, there’s growing interest in whether the government’s enthusiasm for defence spending might wane once the heat of combat cools. Over at the National Post, for example, Mercedes Stephenson warns against “nickel and diming ourselves into another decade of darkness.”

Voices on the right tend to see the Liberals as inherently unsympathetic to the military, while viewing the Conservatives as naturally inclined to spend more freely on the Forces. But can this pattern be seen in the historical data?

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/07/05/defence-spending-does-the-party-in-power-spell-the-difference/

 

[Old Sweat]

Fun with numbers. The writer managed to convince himself that the decade of darkness wasn't too bad, after all. Mind you, he was using data supplied by Project Ploughshares.

 

[toyotatundra]

Fun with numbers. The writer managed to convince himself that the decade of darkness wasn't too bad, after all. Mind you, he was using data supplied by Project Ploughshares.

From what I can tell, the military spending and GDP figures provided in the Ploughshares article are comparable to the figures on government websites. Perhaps the problem is not the data supplied by the organization, but rather how they use that data to further an ideological agenda.

 

[DBA]

It's just a way you can deceive with statistics. Basically you compare absolute values, change in values, percentage difference or percentage change etc depending on which goes your way and then close with a statement as if you compared something else. I can do it to:

Lets look at the change between 1990-1994 and 1995-1999:

Canada's average defence spending as a % of GDP dropped by 0.5 points.
US average defence spending as a % of GDP dropped by 1.3 points.

See? We dodged a bullet and dropped by less than half what they did down south. Headline : "Canada's defence spending dropped by less than half the USA's in 1990's".

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The complete picture:

Canada 1.8 to 1.3, about a 30% drop.
US 4.6 to 3.3, about a 30% drop.
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Not to mention the % of GDP is also a dodge as "Defence Spending" suggests a comparison of absolute dollars.

 

[toyotatundra]

It's just a way you can deceive with statistics. Basically you compare absolute values, change in values, percentage difference or percentage change etc depending on which goes your way and then close with a statement as if you compared something else. I can do it to

I guess it's like Mark Twain said. There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.