Say it with figures

[senji]

In our first term we banished the demons of […] mass unemployment …

Tony Blair, in "The Labour Party manifesto 2005"

Comments

[cartesiandaemon]

I think it was Clinton who used the third derivative: "The rate of increase of inflation is going down." ie. things are getting worse faster than before.

[senji]

However even further derivatives appear to be unhelpful to the Labour cause here.

[senji]

Inflation is already a first derivative.

[cartesiandaemon]

It probably was tending to a maximum, but the statement doesn't quite say that: if the rate of increase of inflation was (1+1/t), then it would be decreasing, but inflation would always rise unboundedly.