🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1otqs8INN9b8@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca> twong@civil.ubc.ca (Thomas Wong) writes:
>
>Am I the only one or is anyone else getting sick of BCTV New's deficit
>comparison song-and-dance? Mind you, I think their week long program on
>the deficit is great, most imformative, and does well in pinpointing the
>problems and possible solutions. Those segments have been most
>wonderful. But throughout the week, every 5 minutes within the News,
>they have to do a .... everytime you tie your shoelace, the debt
>increase by blah blah blah dollars. Everytime this man does 10 push
>ups, the national debt grows by ..... everytime this dog walks across
>the street, the deft grows by.... everytime you change a tire on your
>car, the debt grows by.... everytime you brush your fingers through your
>hair, the debt grows by.... everytime you start your car engine, the
>debt grows by......  argh! :(


It's a good thing I haven't been watching BCTV's news recently...I have
a weak stomach.

Actually, I did catch one part of one of these reports, and noticed at
least two errors, and was already sick of the display of that stupid
debt clock after 30 seconds.  At one point the increase in taxes since
19?? was mentioned to be x%.  "That means you pay x times as much today
as you did then."  WRONG - that means you pay x/100 times as much.  At
another point the "fact" that Canada has the largest per-capita debt in
the world was trotted out.  No justification was given, which is a pity
because I would have liked to hear where they got this idea.  As far as
I know, (again from something which I would call an unreliable source)
the U.S. debt is higher, per capita.  Maybe I'll just have to go to a
library and try to figure out the truth, because no one in the media
seems to be interested in doing it.

Isn't it amazing how the debt seems to grow at a constant rate, no
matter how small a timeslice you pick?  Gee, there must be some machine
in Ottawa that spits out money at exactly the right rate around the
clock.  Hmmm... let's see, every second that I sit here I'm spending
0.022 cents on rent, 0.004 cents on car insurance, 0.0019 cents on
transit passes...and I consume 0.03 calories of food.  I wonder how
much food I consume when I do 10 push ups. :-)

Granted, it is useful to know what the rate of accumulation of debt is,
but only over reasonable time intervals - nothing can be done by the
politicians to significantly affect how much money the federal
government will spend tomorrow.  Next month, maybe.  After the next
budget, definitely.

Of course, I haven't seen the rest of the "segments" so I can't comment
on whether they hae been "most wonderful".  But given the quality of
local newscasts I doubt I could attribute the word "wonderful" to
anything they do.


-- 

James Strickland               "No silicon heaven?!?
jstrickl@cs.sfu.ca              Where would all the calculators go?"