ABSTRACT
A company that makes only 1 or 20/0 profit on sales may be in a precarious position, because such a profit can be quickly wiped out by a slight increase in costs. But if the company made 1 % profit last year and increased it to 2 % this year, headlines will scream about "a 100% increase in profits, " leading the casual reader to form an impression of gross excess profit taking. The headline has shifted the base of the percentage from sales to profits, and such base shifting is an easy way to create false images. By the same argument, a company that goes from a 0% profit to a 20/0 profit could be accused of making an infinite increase, but this is such an obvious exaggeration that no one tries it.
