Nat Hentoff Quotes

I can prove anything by statistics except the truth.

He uses statistics like a drunk uses lamp-posts, more for support than illumination.

Nearly 300,000 more people are forced to accept part-time employment because of this rotten non-recovery recovery than when Obama arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Under the Nazi Government there has been much 'invisible unemployment.' The number of unemployed Jews is great and is increasing; but these are not counted as unemployed. A decision by the highest labor court at Weimar on November 27, 1935, opened the way for the dismissal of all Jews working for non-Jewish employers. ... in order to protect 'Aryan' employees from Jewish influences. Jews will have to work for Jews or not at all. Another source of 'invisible unemployment' has been the wholesale discharge of women whose husbands are employed, and of unmarried men under twenty-five. None of these are included among the unemployed in the official statistics. Part-time workers are counted as fully employed...

There are three kind of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

When you have 7 percent unemployed, you have 93 percent working.

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts—for support rather than illumination.

Treating unemployment as a national problem is almost always a mistake. Employment trends vary dramatically by race, geography, gender and level of education. But none of that is reflected in the all-encompassing unemployment rate, and hence policies informed only by that number are bound to fall short.

If we can have record high unemployment, record job loss, and just an absolutely anemic economic recovery because of Obama's policies, and he's not blamed for it, what makes anybody think he's gonna get blamed when an insurance company starts doubling their premiums?

The job market improved impressively under Barack Obama's presidency after the Great Recession, when millions of jobs vanished seemingly overnight.

Never trust a television executive.

In Greece, the unemployment rate has risen to 22%. The solution to the problem was to raise taxes on the rich, according to the Greek president Barack Obama-opolis.

Every month, we get the reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that say even more people have given up looking for work.

We've seen tremendous progress in many ways under President [Barack] Obama. I mean, if we think about where the economy was when he got in - you know, we were losing more than 700,000 jobs a month. The unemployment rate was skyrocketing. And now it's at under 5 percent, so there is a lot of progress that has happened.

Taxes are paid in the sweat of every man who labors. If those taxes are excessive, they are reflected in idle factories, in tax-sold farms, and in hordes of hungry people, tramping the streets and seeking jobs in vain. Our workers may never see a tax bill, but they pay. They pay in deductions from wages, in increased cost of what they buy, or - as now - in broad unemployment throughout the land.

Take a look at the current debates in Washington, and of course, everything in the media. Only one issue is discussed: the deficit - the least significant issue, but the most significant issue for the banks. The big problem, joblessness, is barely discussed, even though that's what the public wants, as polls clearly show. That's even what the business press supports, but the financial institutions are so powerful that the only issue is the deficit, and this runs right through the intellectual culture.

The Democrats loved Jimmy Carter, even though - and, by the way, take a look at some economic circumstances. In 1980, the economy of this country was in the tank after four years of Jimmy Carter. I mean, it was desperately bad. Unemployment was sky-high. Carter had seen us through a couple of near-depression recessions, all of this coming out of Watergate, which happened in 1972.

The unemployment rate among the young in the United States is still very disconcerting, although we all know it's nowhere near as bad as it is in some of the European countries, where in some places it approaches 50 percent.

Mitt Romney is predicting that as president, he will create 12 million jobs in his first term. Well, President Obama says a Romney presidency would result in lost jobs. Yeah, his and Biden's.

In the long run, the right answer to unemployment is to create more jobs.

Bush said the unemployment situation is turning around. Last week alone, 5,000 people started working for John Kerry.

There are 300,000 new jobs and Bush said he's confused, 'Can I take credit for good news that I didn't even make up?'

We assume that all statements must be mild inversions of the truth, because it's too weird to imagine people who aren't casually lying, pretty much all the time.

I keep saying we've got 92 million Americans on the beach. They're not working, and they're all eating, and they're all making phone calls, and they're all watching television. But they're not working. You mean to tell me if you tell them that to keep all that they're going to have to get a job, that that is a detriment to your campaign?

Politicians use statistics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-postsfor support rather than illumination.