smoke-and-mirrors premise

English translation: deceptive prmise

22:42 Jul 7, 2003

English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Social Sciences

English term or phrase: smoke-and-mirrors premise

Besides, higher tax rates do not necessarily mean higher tax revenues. The smoke-and-mirrors premise that they do is, in my opinion, promulgated by socialist thinkers with the design more to penalize the rich and the industrious for being successful and rich than to actually generate more tax revenues.

trum-purum (X)

Selected answer:deceptive prmise

Explanation:
Premise presented by politicians who are either fooling their constituencies or fooling themselves, like a magician using smoke and mirrors to fool the audience.

Selected response from:

Fuad Yahya

Grading comment

Thanks!
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED

5 +8

deceptive prmise

Fuad Yahya

4 +3

deceptive premise

Vera Fluhr (X)

Answers

2 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +8

deceptive prmise

Explanation:
Premise presented by politicians who are either fooling their constituencies or fooling themselves, like a magician using smoke and mirrors to fool the audience.

Fuad Yahya
Native speaker of:

Arabic,

English
PRO pts in pair: 893

Grading comment

Thanks!

40 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +3

deceptive premise

Explanation:
Reference:

smoke and mirrors n.
Marketing deceptions.
The term is mainstream in this general sense. Among hackers it's strongly associated with bogus demos and crocked benchmarks (see also MIPS, machoflops). "They claim their new box cranks 50 MIPS for under $5000, but didn't specify the instruction mix -- sounds like smoke and mirrors to me." The phrase, popularized by newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin c.1975, has been said to derive from carnie slang for magic acts and `freak show' displays that depend on `trompe l'oeil' effects, but also calls to mind the fierce Aztec god Tezcatlipoca (lit. "Smoking Mirror") for whom the hearts of huge numbers of human sacrificial victims were regularly cut out. Upon hearing about a rigged demo or yet another round of fantasy-based marketing promises, hackers often feel analogously disheartened. See also stealth manager.
http://forest.pu.ru/jargon/html/entry/smoke-and-mirrors.html

Reference: http://forest.pu.ru/jargon/html/entry/smoke-and-mirrors.html

Vera Fluhr (X)
Local time: 04:31
Native speaker of:

Russian,

French

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