Figures Never Lie 1980

   I told you that I was going to share a column with you - a column written by my Aunt Peg.  It was hard trying to figure out where to start - I love her columns so it is difficult to pick out which one to begin with...
    I finally decided to look back on some of the columns that were close to today's date.  The one I selected is from February 6, 1980 - nearly 30 years ago.   It seems fitting that she writes of an election year time frame.  I should note that my Aunt lived within the five mile radius of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania - which may be part of the reason for the krypton gas mention in the third paragraph???...  Anyway - I found it interesting and I hope you find it interesting and a bit entertaining as well.  Here is the column - in the words of my Aunt Peg - Roslyn (Green) Freeborn.

FIGURES NEVER LIE - PEG FREEBORN
   Like so many of my generation, I was lucky enough to grow up in the benevolent vicinity of a sharp-witted, and sometimes sharp-tongued, grandmother.  My Grandma Green was of Pennsylvania Dutch stock and Nebraska Pioneer sentiment; and she had a saying for just about any situation.  One of her sayings was "Figures never lie," but she was always quick to qualify it with "...but, Liars can figure!"
    As usual, Grandma was right on the button.  Her saying was especially valid today, with an election year right around the corner.  The Liars are figuring to beat the band!  Using, presumably the same set of economic numbers, one candidate claims the "gross national product" is up several notches, while another says, when adjusted for inflation, it is way down.  One man claims more people are employed than ever before, while another points with dismay that more people are out of work then ever before.
    Then we have the NRC telling us they would like to let off a little practically harmless radioactive krypton gas that will give us about as many microcuries of radiation as we get from watching a season of football on a colored TV set.  Then they turn around and say, if we don't let then turn loose the stuff, and we had another one of those impossible accidents, it could wipe out Maryland. 
     The treasurer of the school board tells us they can spend 3/4 of a million dollars making a sports paradise out of a swamp without raising taxes, but we'll have to give them another mil or two to patch the leaky high school roof.  And then the oil companies claim their 105% increase in profits is just a wee drop in the bucket and besides, it was all made off the British and European markets.  
     Economists claim we are just starting into double-digit inflation.  Presumably double-digit means 11.  Then why is it that every cotton picking thing I go to buy costs at least twice as much as it did just a little while back?  The way I was taught to figure, that is 100% inflation.
     And how about our banks and lending institutions.  In the good old days they made money by lending at 4% and paying 2% on savings.  Now they claim they can hardly make ends meet and they are lending at 17.5% and paying a lousy 5.4% on passbook savings.  If that 2% spread turned all the small town bankers I ever knew into the richest men in their towns, how come the modern bankers can't keep body and soul together on a 12.2% spread?
     It is probably just as well that my Grandma and her sharp tongue are sleeping peacefully along side of Grandpa in Ridge Cemetery under the clear Nebraska sky.  She would have a conniption cat fit at these fiscal shinnanigans.  It certainly wouldn't pass her notice that the Liars are figuring.  Grandma, you were right as rain.

​    Be sure to post a comment!  Did you know my Aunt Peg?  Do you remember my Great Grandma Kate Green?  I would love to hear your connection or memories.  Thanks.  (more to come)
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