"I agree they are useful charts."
I understand how you saw it that way, as I did, at first. But then a more critical look for only a few minutes showed me something different. Take a look at this.
In the first chart, behind the following URL address, what is "human resources?" "Human resources" in business and in our common language applies to employee costs (pay, benefits, etc.). I want to see a total of funding for all social programs. What about funds that went to the states? And where are the dollar amounts? We don't want to see a percentage of military spending as compared to what was spent on employee pay packages. We want to see how much funding the government in one term spent on social programs as compared to the term before it. And we'll compensate for inflation, thank you. What if a given president spent more on both social programs and the military in his term, but raised the rate of military spending as compared to all federal employee pay packages?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1169547/posts?page=30#30
The next chart posted,
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1169547/posts?page=45#45
is an even more obvious piece of propaganda trash. Notice that the scale for the military spending side of the chart is in half percentage points while the "HR" [human resources] side is in whole points. And that's not the ugliest part. See that the military percentage side of the chart is in the teens and twenties, while the "HR" side is in the 50s and 60s. That way, the graph lines cross each other. Using proportions in charts that way is one of the most simple and old propaganda tricks with charts.
And the second chart is also a pictorial of the oddball percentage comparison of military spending versus "human resources" spending.
You are making great errors in your analysis.
"Human Resources" is a category in the US Budget that is made up of SS, Medicare, training, social programs, etc. Take a trip through the US budget so you understand that.
It does not matter what "human resource is in the business world" as you say. What matters is how the US Budget defines "Human Resources" since that is what the chart shows. Think "socialism"--that is the US Budget definition. You might find looking through the US Budget helpful. In addition, these categoroes are "normalized" so year-to-year comparisons are "apples to apples".
Second, you have seen charts of the NASDAQ and Dow Jones 30, correct? How do you think the scales look on each side of the graph when the NASDAQ is at 2000 and the Dow is at 10000?
Are you saying that the only things that can be compared are two items of exactly the same size? Every single chart ever produced in the history of the world that has two items to compare with different indexes simply are scaled to show the trend. It is the TREND that is important, not the index value they are based on.
The chart is just a pretty picture of showing hard data. What is important is the data. Take away the pretty picture and you still have the data showing about 68% being spent on social welfare and less than 20% being spent on the DOD. If you didn't notice, the source of the chart data is the Office of Management and Budget.
Back to basics, Kerry is a socialist and Edwards is a frivolous lawsuit lawyer. Robert Sentry has said such. I like it here and I like the stuff he writes (I am a registered member over there) also as it is always factual. I ignore his sour feelings about FR but I have not seen one bit of any anti-FR stuff on his home page ever. I was a reader of Ether Zone where he also writes before I became a member of FR and I can tell you Robert Sentry is the only one there steadily exposing Kerry-Edwards.
Anything I can do to help expose Kerry-Edwards for what they are I will send to my friends, and I have seen some of the best stuff from him. I wish Jim would invite him back and make a settlement with him over past hard feelings. We are all in this together, and he is one of the best anti-Democrat writers.