Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Math

Have you heard the one about how "if we split up the $700 billion, everyone would get $400,000" (or $40,000, or whatever)?

It made me optimistic for about 10 seconds, until fact-checker me did the math.

Counting kids and the undocumented, we'd all get about $2,000, folks. If it were divided per household, each of those would see about six grand.

Now, $1.3 trillion? That's walking around money! Welcome to the United States of the Federal Reserve. (Not really; it's still not enough to pay anything off in this household.)

On another note, I read that the Springfield, Missouri, School District is set to become larger than ours. It got me thinking about my "investment" in education (being a property owner and all).

If $300 million is the Kansas City, Missouri, School District's annual budget, and there are about 21,000 kids in that system, why doesn't $14,000 per student add up to anything like adults who can use a calculator to divide 700,000,000,000 by 305,000,000 before spreading around misinformation? Or better yet, people who can estimate that in their heads and spew out a retort posthaste.

Can you tell I've been reading founding-father-era fodder?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

But, on a positive note, that would pay for a new porch roof.

kcmeesha said...

1.Are you two married? :-)
2.Many things in this country rely on people who can't count. I.e when the tag says 5 or 10% off, no one can't figure out how much that is because if they did, they would have known that it may be just a buck or two. Or another example - sales 2 for 5 or (saw yesterday at Hy-Vee) 10 for 5,which is normally 50 cents each. This wouldn't fly where people can add or divide.

Applecart T. said...

I'm sure D. would be half-flattered, but, no — humans can see eye-to-eye and know things about each other as close friends and not be matrimonial.

The person to whom I am married never comments, but if you would like to send house-repair funds (as my finance fellow tells me: "we're going to be in our houses for a long time"), I welcome the gesture.

The "cash, grass, or a__" model still holds true, though I would prefer food to a__ any day.

Too bad I'm too lazy to set up the PayPal button (and the econ. is dead until I'm 60).

PS, argh, debate = C-

Anonymous said...

D would be totally flattered as I am in hog heaven if a younger woman even TALKS to me. I would send porch money but I have none as I spend my days donating my services to rich people.