Calculating Story

I watched this 90-second piece on MSNBC with Brian Williams and his guest....Mara Gay.  So the comment was made...that this $500-million that Bloomberg spent....could have been spent, and given all 327-million Americans a million each, and still had money left over.

I watched it twice....to make sure what I heard.  Then I did the math.  I'm not a rocket scientist, electrical engineer, or physics PhD guy.  My high school math teach did give me some basic math tools, and they still linger today.

If you figure up the Bloomberg money, and gave it to the public.....we each would have gotten around $1.53.  In basic terms....it would pay for a cheap cup of coffee and one cheap donut (not even the Dunkin type).  You couldn't even buy a bucket of popcorn at the theater, or a premium beer at the bar, or a table dance with that Memphis stripper visiting Gadsden this week.

In fact, you couldn't even buy a six-pack of Pepsi, unless it was on sale at Wal-Mart.  You might be able to buy ultra cheap bottle of discounted wine.  English Leather cologne?  It would have only paid 40-percent of the cost of that bottle.

So this exchange between Williams and Gay?  It was like two marginalized 3rd-grade kids and talking over numbers but not able to grasp the value of numbers.

This is the sad dilemma for Americans today.  They watch people like this and sit there at the kitchen table with their Tandy calculator for 30 minutes....trying to figure out how you'd get a million from Bloomberg, with MSNBC numbers, and it never adds up.  Eventually, you figure the Tandy calculator is crapped out (after 38 years of service and you throw it into the trash).  Then 'Randy' (your 8-year old son) comes in and looks at the data and says the Tandy calculator was correct.  You wipe a tear away.....drag the calculator out of the trash and thank Randy for his insight and brilliance. 

Randy might be going off to college one day, and inherit the Tandy calculator.