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News people totally suck at math!


Road Runner

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You would think that the utter and sheer ridiculousness of a single person being rich enough to be able to give everyone in the US a million dollars each would have set off some massive red flags in someone's brain!  For someone in the news room who saw that prior to airing!  It's not just Brian's inept brain that let that one get on the air.  

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16 minutes ago, Road Runner said:

You would think that the utter and sheer ridiculousness of a single person being rich enough to be able to give everyone in the US a million dollars each would have set off some massive red flags in someone's brain!

The US government total expenditures were 4.4 trillion dollars in 2019.  To give every American a million dollars would require a total outlay of 327 trillion dollars.  From one person!

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3 hours ago, Road Runner said:

You would think that the utter and sheer ridiculousness of a single person being rich enough to be able to give everyone in the US a million dollars each would have set off some massive red flags in someone's brain!  For someone in the news room who saw that prior to airing!  It's not just Brian's inept brain that let that one get on the air.  

Off by a few orders of magnitude, so very easy to spot. Sheesh!

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I've often commented on articles in Yahoo Finance, ABC, etc. that almost all journalism majors haven't had a math class since high school and part of their core curriculum in college should include a math class in statistics.  They screw up similarly, over and over on finance sites.

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15 hours ago, Road Runner said:

News People totally suck at math!

FIFY

I think there are far more "crappy at math" types out there than there are "good at math" types. I'd blame calculators or computers or whatever tech, but I think it has been pretty true forever :(

Oddly, some folks who aren't real good with numbers can still be good at things that would seem to require skills with math - baking or carpentry or finances or other stuff. 

Lucky for Williams, he probably has people who count his money for him. 

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1 hour ago, Razors Edge said:

I'd blame calculators or computers or whatever tech, but I think it has been pretty true forever

I'd suggest that it's been true forever BUT, calculators or computers or whatever tech, just make the problem much worse.   The ability to do math for many people stops when the power goes out or the battery dies,

I learned with paper and a pencil.  Then a slide rule.  And I love my old HP calculators.  

Once during some training at work people needed calculators for the task and the guy next to me had his battery fail.  He asked to borrow my calculator.  He gave it back in a few seconds.  This is from the app on my phone.

HP41.thumb.jpg.75bd89fa1485657808cc571f5fc178bc.jpg

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8 hours ago, Bikeguy said:

I'd suggest that it's been true forever BUT, calculators or computers or whatever tech, just make the problem much worse.   The ability to do math for many people stops when the power goes out or the battery dies,

I learned with paper and a pencil.  Then a slide rule.  And I love my old HP calculators.  

Once during some training at work people needed calculators for the task and the guy next to me had his battery fail.  He asked to borrow my calculator.  He gave it back in a few seconds.  This is from the app on my phone.

HP41.thumb.jpg.75bd89fa1485657808cc571f5fc178bc.jpg

Math is not my strength. That said, it amazes me, how some cashiers can't count change back into your hand these days.  I was a cashier for several years as a student.

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