In the past decade, a decreasing percentage of money spent on treating disease X went to pay for standard methods of ...

Emil-Kunkin on September 27 at 03:03AM

Hi, the author confuses percentages and absolutes in the argument. While the percent of money spent on the standard has fallen, it's possible that the absolute amount has risen. Maybe in the past we spend 1 million on standard and 0 on nonstandard, while now we spend 1.1 million on standard and 2 million on nonstandard. In this case the percentage fell from 100 to about 35, even though the total increased by 100k. The fact that we spent more on nonstandard doesn't guarantee that we also didn't spend more on standard as well, as long as the spend on standard increase at a slower rate than that of the spend on nonstandard.

E however guarantees that the amount fell in dollar terms.