Comment: i can appreciate that

as an engineer :)

And great point on the use of language. I have a similar issue with the use of "fair" by the liberals especially... taxes must be "fair". People have to do a "fair share". but what, exactly is "fair"? As far as I can tell, they deliberately use an undefined term that makes the discussion a play on emotion instead of fact and logic, and then any conservative that opposes their "fair" suggestion is painted as a greedy, heartless bastard that wants to see babies die and kill puppies or something equally absurd.

Plus, it allows them to continually redefine what "fair" means. today, maybe it's 35% of your income. Tomorrow? We'll talk again, maybe it's different... we have to be "fair" after all. To make sure we have "good" "growth".

I did make the point to him as well that an increase in "things" does not necessarily translate to growth of wealth, if each of those individual "things" are worth fractionally less than the original "thing".