@Jason Newton

Your friend, colleague or whatever does not have a firm grasp of basic arithmetic, so his analysis is more than a little suspect. He talks continually of "a decline of -6%" and so on. A *decline* is a subtraction. Subtract -6 from a number, you *add* 6 to it.

Don't just take my word for it - grab a calculator. Take 100, subtract -6. Result, 106.

Given that extremely serious error - and no, this is not just a small matter of definitions, it means he can't add up - then frankly the rest of his message is of no interest.