Why so pathetic?

[MarkBarbieri]

What is wrong with people's basic math skills? Last month it was the ridiculous claim that we could have used the $700 billion TARP money to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to every family instead.

Now I was reading this gossipy trash about the octuplets mother.

Sophy said the expense of raising 14 children will likely be prohibitive, citing studies that estimate it costs roughly $2.5 million to raise a child to adulthood. Using that math, raising 14 children would cost roughly $35 million.

How does this get written and published? What study could possibly estimate that it costs "roughly $2.5 million" to raise a child to adulthood? Even if you generously assume that it takes 25 years to raise a child to adulthood, that works out to $100,000 / year. Does it take a rocket scientist to realize that in a country where the median household income is less than $100,000 / year that we couldn't possibly be spending that much money raising children?

 

[JR6ooo4]

I certainly am not. Hehehehee
and you can print that!

Mikeeee

 

[MelanieC]

children are expensive, but definately think the costs are highly inflated, lol!

 

[Cool-Beans]

I gave up when the gas station attendant couldn't give me change from a five because the register was broken. It was a dollar and change.

When I realized she couldn't do it, I told her what the change was. She looked at me like I might be a con artist and said, "I'm supposed to check. There's supposed to be a calculator here." She looked and looked and couldn't find it.

I told her again what the change should be. And she gave it to me. But in her eyes you could see, "I hope I'm doing the right thing here..." She was nervous.



I no longer assume that anyone can do even basic addition/subtraction.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I remember stopping with my mother at a bakery. The power was out. They couldn't figure out how to calculate the 6% sales tax. Sad.

 

[mkingdomlvr]

I gave up when the gas station attendant couldn't give me change from a five because the register was broken. It was a dollar and change.

When I realized she couldn't do it, I told her what the change was. She looked at me like I might be a con artist and said, "I'm supposed to check. There's supposed to be a calculator here." She looked and looked and couldn't find it.

I told her again what the change should be. And she gave it to me. But in her eyes you could see, "I hope I'm doing the right thing here..." She was nervous.



I no longer assume that anyone can do even basic addition/subtraction.

I taught a cashier how to count back change once. She was just a kid, and the store was empty-so I showed her how to do it. I told her that if she did that every transaction, she'd never have to worry about giving someone the wrong change. It was kind of sad that she had no clue how to do it at 16.

 

[DarthKTrava]

I gave up when the gas station attendant couldn't give me change from a five because the register was broken. It was a dollar and change.

When I realized she couldn't do it, I told her what the change was. She looked at me like I might be a con artist and said, "I'm supposed to check. There's supposed to be a calculator here." She looked and looked and couldn't find it.

I told her again what the change should be. And she gave it to me. But in her eyes you could see, "I hope I'm doing the right thing here..." She was nervous.



I no longer assume that anyone can do even basic addition/subtraction.

I don't even use the computer/cash register/calculator to give back change. One time when I used to know the prices with tax, I'd have a big paper where I wrote down the items and the price and then would start doing math. Freaked people out.

I remember stopping with my mother at a bakery. The power was out. They couldn't figure out how to calculate the 6% sales tax. Sad.

Sure. Give me a piece of paper, a pencil and about 30 seconds.

My now ex-boyfriend taught me that if you multiply the amount by 1.06(to use your tax amount as an example), it'd add the tax to the amount in the calculation.