Suppose a politician told you (loudly!) that the US was not running a deficit, but then he mumbled, under his breath, and so softly that no one could hear for sure, “provided you don’t count military and homeland defense spending”
“WHAT?? What did you say,” you ask?
“Oh nothing,” is the reply.
Right.
But it’s not nothing, is it?
In 2025, the U.S. federal budget deficit was $1.78 trillion (yes, with a T).
And just this week, the US House of Representatives passed a $1.15 trillion (yes, with a T) baseline defense spending bill, which has total framework costs rising to $1.5 trillion.
This budget does not include an additional $87 billion in a war funding request ($67 billion explicitly for countering Iran), nor does it include the $107.9 billion already allocated for the 2026 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) budget, or about $20 billion a year spent on foreign military assistance outlays.
Add it all up, and then subtract that number, and there’s no US deficit — just a very big asterisk.
Why do I tell you this?
Well, inconvenient data has a habit of simply being left off the books.
An example from my own colorful life:
Back when Ronald Reagan was in office, I had the White House convene a meeting of about 6 crack-shot demographers from the US Census Bureau, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Urban Institute, and the Population Reference Bureau. I was not working for the White House (I am a democrat), but everyone knew who I was, even if they did not quite know what the meeting was about.
I began, by noting that the assembled were the best and brightest in population and immigration data, and no one could argue if they said illegal immigration was 10,000 people a year or 10 million.
BUT…. and I took a three beat pause for effect … the Census Bureau was using the One Number everyone Knew Was Wrong …. ZERO.
It seems because the Census Bureau could not definitively determine how many illegal immigrants (or undocumented workers, if you prefer), were coming in every year, they were using the number Zero in their projection calculations — the one number they knew was WRONG.
Shortly afterwards, the Census Bureau changed the number to a net addition of 200,000 people a year.
Some years afterwards, I was at the Lyon Village Giant grocery store in Arlington, Virginia when the fellow in front of me turned out to be the Census Bureau’s immigration expert — one of the people in that White House meeting some 12 years earlier. We recognized each other immediately, and I averred that the 2000 Census numbers, which had just come out, were quite interesting — the Census Bureau had counted 281.4 million people, exceeding official projections by roughly 6 million. All of these "extra people" were foreign-born.
Jeff mumbled something about there being “less emigration of the foreign born out of the US” than the Bureau had calculated.
I am sure he was right, but my point was not lost on him either. He was a bit embarrassed and slipped away — no doubt a pressing appointment that he was already late for.
What does this have to do with dogs?
Well, a bit.
You see, yesterday’s post about canine life expectancy by breed had a lot of people confused. It seems most people do not know what life expectancy is, or how it is calculated. My apologies. I am a demographer by training, and I sometimes forget that not everyone knows the difference between cohort and period data, or how to do simple regression with four variables.
Let’s start with the basics: Human life expectancy has dramatically improved, quite rapidly, in developing countries all over the world. And yet, there has not been a matching increase in terminal longevity.
We all know why. Infant, maternal, and early childhood mortality has plunged with access to clean water, soap, antibiotics, indoor bathrooms, and vaccines. These five interventions alone account for most global life expectancy increases in the last 200 years, 100 years, 50 years, and 10 years.
How bad was it in “the good old days”?
Well, in first-century Rome, one quarter to one third of all infants died within their first year of life, and roughly half of all children died before reaching puberty.
Yow!
What’s the data for Italy today?
Well, Italian infant mortality rates have declined from 250-330 deaths per 1,000 live births in Caesar’s Rome to about 2 deaths per 1,000 live births today.
To bring us back to dogs….
Canine life expectancy at birth has nothing to do with terminal longevity of any breed, anymore than life expectancy at birth has anything to with terminal longevity of humans.
Life expectancy of dogs, as with humans, has a LOT to do with neonatal mortality, or what in the dog world is called “fading puppy syndrome”.
Canine neonatal mortality is very high, with 15-30 percent mortality quite common. Numbers vary depending on breed, with morphology and weight at birth being two key drivers. Very small dogs and brachycephalic dogs have higher than average neonatal mortality (ie higher than 15 percent).
Now, here’s where it gets interesting: the common failure of breeders and veterinary care data bases to chalk up neonatal mortalities.
Puppies born at home, and which die in a day or two, are generally never seen by a vet, and with exceptions “runts” are a bit problematic in the sales and overhead cost department. Six pups are born, five survive, and a runt dies without a $2,000 veterinary bill? Most breeders will count that as an acceptable outcome.
To be clear, none of this is new. Humans too have been historically slow to tally up perinatal and early childhood death; better to simply count it as “just one of those things”.
And so, both the Talmud and Aristotle do not count a zygote as having a human soul until 40 days after conception — the “quickening”. Spontaneous abortion then, was softened as a psychological blow. Prior to 40 days, the Talmud describes the loss as "mere water" or fluid. Loss?? What loss?
After giving birth, according to the Law of Moses (Leviticus 12) a woman was unclean for 7 days after bearing a son, followed by 33 days of purification, totaling 40 days (note that the required “purification time” was double for daughters).
Forty days of postpartum confinement and “purification” was common across the ancient world, and may have been a cautionary quarantine (a term which means 40 days), to reduce interaction with people and things that could increase infection or disease transmission during periods of open wounds and/or lower immunity and weakened or recovering constitutions.
Bottom line: a lot of newborn humans once died!
In Judaism, a baby boy is not given his jewish name until eight days after birth — it can be an even longer period of time for baby girls.
In the Bible, it’s only after 40 days of life that baby Jesus was presented to the public at the Temple in Jerusalem. Think of it as a “coming out” public announcement that a viable human being had entered the polity, and you have the right idea.
When children died wholesale in their first week or two of life, no one was presenting their great joy too soon
The point here, is that even with human babies, there is a long-standing tendency to both recognize the huge potential for perinatal and neonatal mortality AND to shield, soften, and minimize the loss through language, ritual, and delay.
And is it different with dogs?
It is not.
Data by breed for “fading puppy syndrome” is hard to find, and the very high numbers for dogs in general is rarely discussed, nor is the probability that these high numbers are actually an underestimate (for reasons previously stated).
When data is presented, perpetual apologists for inbreeding and deformity swoop in, clucking that the data must be wrong, because it does not fit neatly into their folder of ignorance and breed club silence.
Besides, it’s all “backyard breeders” fault they say, apparently oblivious that almost every Kennel Club breeder is breeding their dogs in their own backyard.
As I have noted in the past, the same phenomenon is observable when you raise any uncomfortable issue: denial, what-about-ism, attempts to define away, furious typing, ad hominem attacks, and opinion and anecdote presented as if that’s responsive to expertise or data.
Think I am wrong? Then you have not spent much time with the folks minimizing church or Epstein pedophilia, or Israeli genocide, or US civil rights violations, or…. pick your issue.
Whenever there is discomfort with data, the folks feeling uncomfortable almost always minimize and reject the data, a point I have made several times before, including when writing about dog training and pedophilia (see end notes, but also read “Don’t Think of an Elephant” by George Lakoff).
OK, but what does Jesus Christ’s presentation at the temple 40 days after his birth have to do with terriers?
Well, a bit.
Groundhog day and Candlemas (the Feast of the Presentation) are the same day for a reason.
See >> https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2005/02/happy-groundhog-day.html?
And YES, everything is connected, even fantasy and denial, life and death, blood and stars.
Let us prey.
———————-———————-
END NOTES
▪️See “When Pedophiles Write In” >> https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2022/10/pit-bulls-and-pedophiles.html?
▪️See “The Power of Frames” >> https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-power-of-frames.html?
▪️See “Your Arguments are Invalid” >> https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2011/10/your-arguments-are-invalid.html?
▪️See “Anecdote Is Not Responsive to Data” >>
https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2026/07/longevity-ignorance-and-lies.html?
▪️See “An Inconvenient Truth” >> https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2006/08/inconvenient-truth.html?
No comments:
Post a Comment