In principle they're 2nd derivatives, but in practice the public is only ever informed of the first derivative, rather than the plain value; news programs repor

In principle they're 2nd derivatives, but in practice the public is only ever informed of the first derivative, rather than the plain value; news programs report inflation, not the value of the consumer price index, the deficit and not the debt, and GDP growth rather than the GDP. (To the extent that sometimes I've heard journalists and news anchors say that "GDP fell to 1% this year" - when actually it's "GDP grew at only 1% this year".)