Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has deleted a tweet that attacked Joe Biden on rising consumer prices using incomprehensible math that was embarrassingly wrong.
The former Trump administration official is part of a chorus hounding the White House over its response to the inflation that has gripped countries around the world following the Covid-19 pandemic for months. In March, tweeting about the rising CPI, she said: “These numbers are not sustainable. Biden’s spending is hurting American families.”
But in a more recent post, which has since been taken down, the former governor took a swipe at the president using a chart that calculated how much the prices of individual items had increased and then oddly added them together to falsely claim that consumer prices in fact, they have grown by more than 60 percent in one year.
That’s not how inflation works. Adding the percentages of individual price increases together to get a larger number does not actually correspond to an actual price increase of that magnitude; no sector of the economy has seen prices increase by anywhere near this amount.
The post was quickly taken down after Ms Haley apparently realized how bad the math she was presenting as fact really was, but that didn’t stop the jeers from political pundits, some of whom were so surprised by the logical leap that they initially didn’t believe this is a real post. Many pointed out that Ms Haley, seen as a potential contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has a degree in accounting.
“Oh my god, I thought this was fake until I found a second screenshot @ Nikki Haley – with an accounting degree and former business association treasurer – she really is that stupid,” tweeted liberal commentator Keith Olbermann.
“I was under the impression that this tweet might be fake until I saw archived responses to it on the web archive that included the tweet,” CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski wrote.
Matt Iglesias, co-founder of Vox.com, added that the post was proof that Ms Haley “can’t even do routine math”.
Another sassy commenter likened Ms Haley’s maths struggles to efforts in the US by conservative parents to change school curricula they see as objective, particularly regarding discussions of America’s history of slavery and racism.
“And to think @GOP is banning math books. @NikkiHaley is this the new math your group is teaching?’
Inflation is a serious problem facing both ordinary Americans and the Biden administration, but it is hardly a problem unique to the United States. Consumer prices are rising even faster in the Conservative-controlled United Kingdom, which is expected to have the highest inflation rates of any G7 country in 2022 and beyond, according to a new report.
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