Spinning "spin offs"

Remember three months ago? Economic doom was dominating the headlines, the Government in Ottawa was nearly chased out after a Parliamentary crisis, Americans were getting their first peek at the economic direction of an incoming Obama administration, and Santa was preparing for a sleigh ride.

And in that merriest month of December, in Newfoundland and Labrador, newly-minted Finance Minister Jerome Kennedy was cooking the books updating the finances. It was a fine update with many very merry predictions, all in "respon(se) to the current world economic downturn".

Among them, the following merry little graph, on page two:
The graph has colors. It has fancy layout. And it has numbers. One thing it does not have, however, is any methodology. There's no reference whatsoever to the sources for these "spin off" jobs. They aren't quantified anywhere, they aren't even explained. They simply are.

And, as per usual, nobody asked any questions. Not the Opposition, not the media, not the academics who like to tout Our Dear Premier's fiscal stewardship, etc.

So if it really is true, or if it was true three months ago, as the Finance Minister declared, that the 2008 fiscal year would see over 2,000 person year jobs created in the province, how does he explain this:

While Danny Williams and Jerome Kennedy were patting themselves on the back for "creating" 2,000 person years of employment in 2008 alone, some evil nefarious beings were undoing their glorious acheivements by eliminating 9,500 jobs elsewhere. How else could you possibly explain the net effect of a loss of 7,500 jobs in the very fiscal year in which the government, as recently as 90 days ago, was professing to have created a couple of thousand?

Well there is another possible explanation - they were embellishing.

Better still, all of those "spin offs" were just that -

They were all "spin".
And they were all "off".

Let's hope the pundits approach tomorrow's budget with a healthy dose of scepticism, to go along with their already sceptical view of Health.