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# 600% is the new 2 + 2 = 5
- URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/600-is-the-new-2-2-5/
- Published: 2026-04-26T23:30:15.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-26T23:30:15.000Z
- Author: Matt Birchler
- Tags: Links

PBS News has a quote from *the very intelligent* RFK Jr.: [Fact-checking RFK Jr.'s claim there's more than one way to calculate a percentage decrease](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-rfk-jr-s-claim-theres-more-than-one-way-to-calculate-a-percentage-decrease?ref=birchtree.me)

> Kennedy said, "President Trump has a different way of calculating percentages. There's two ways of calculating percentages. If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that's a 600% reduction."

He's of course saying this because the president said this, and in this government, the president can never make any mistakes. Therefore, this must be correct.

[Or as someone else famously put it:](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/321469-in-the-end-the-party-would-announce-that-two-and?ref=birchtree.me)

> In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it.