Fallacious Arguments and Psychological Tactics - Essay Example

Fallacious Arguments and Psychological Tactics Teacher               Fallacious Arguments and Psychological Tactics As the implies, the article is about more British people who are now employed. This actually translated to 154,000 new jobs between September and December. In this case, the number of people working increased by almost 200,000 while the number of part-time workers was reduced by 43,000. These are indeed good economic times for Great Britain, as the article implies (Gye, 2013).

The article may actually be using accurate statistics but it does employ some rhetorical devices in the article. In fact, the author somehow uses several hyperboles in order to exaggerate the mere increase in employment. A quote used in the article is “The UK is now ahead of many of its international rivals when it comes to cutting employment and creating jobs” (Gye, 2013). However, obviously being ahead of one’s rivals in the international scene is not necessarily just due to lowered unemployment rates.

Another hyperbole is the statement “This is unlike anything seen in this country since the Second World War” (Gye, 2013). However, it is impossible that there has not been any other good thing that happened in Britain from 1945 to 2014.The author also tries to euphemize the unemployment of the youth: “Youth unemployment has risen yet again, back towards the million mark [so Britain’s response is] an industrial back-to-work program to match the crisis we face” (Gye, 2013). Therefore, it seems so convenient to think that just because there is a proposed solution, then the problem is already solved.

One of the psychological tactics employed by the author is mentioning that more and more young people are actually becoming unemployed. However, aside from the fact that the author makes a headcount of around 1,000,000 for the unemployed youth, his data on the 29.73 million who have jobs include those aged 16 to 64 (Gye, 2013). Thus, it is not clear where the 1,000,000 figure is coming from, as it couldn’t be that the same youth from the age of 16 and above who are among the 29.73 million employed are the same people who are among the 1,000,000 unemployed.

Thus, there is not only something missing here but something amiss. Lastly, there is the fallacy of non sequitur for it does not follow that “the UK is now ahead of many of its international rivals…” merely because the illustrations indicate that “even though wages have been rising, in recent years prices have been rising at a faster rate” (Gye, 2013). Thus, there is actually nothing good about being employed if the salary is merely good enough to make someone survive until it cannot.

Moreover, the falling unemployment rate forecast in the UK is slow and may take until 2016 (How Is It Really Doing?, 2013). If there was a way for me to rewrite the paper, I would definitely rewrite the article without exaggerating the facts and without producing unbelievable hyperboles. Perhaps, the best way to do this would be to rewrite the paper without neglecting the other details that the reader is entitled to know, such as the real story behind the rising unemployment of the youth and the rising cost of prices that seem to cancel any good effects of the falling unemployment rate.

The most important thing is that the readers will be able to see the whole picture, and thus let them decide for themselves if the United Kingdom is really improving or not in terms of employment.ReferencesGye, H. (2013). Number of people in employment hits record level with almost 30 million in work – but the squeeze on wages continues. Retrieved from DailyMail.co.uk: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2281563/Number-people-employment-hits-record-level-30-million-work--squeeze-wages-continues.

htmlHow is it really doing? (2013). Retrieved from The Economist: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21583250-encouraging-numbers-disguise-deep-problems-mark-carney-must-take-action-mitigate-them-how