The Financial Riddler 2-8-25

This is far harder than you deserve.

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1. How many broiler chickens does the U.S. produce per year?

   a. 700 million

   b. 1 billion

   c. 4 billion

   d. 9 billion

   e. 11 billion

And the answer is ..

The answer is 9 billion. Since 2022, some 100 million chickens — broilers and egg-laying hens — have died or been culled due to avian flu. There is a chicken vaccine. But a vaccinated chicken, even though they remain healthy, can carry the virus. As a result, many foreign countries ban the import of vaccinated chickens. Consequently, we don’t vaccinate. This may warm RFK, Jr’s heart, but with the price of a dozen eggs exceeding $7.00 (see the chart below by tradingeconomics.com), President Musk may want to rethink the policy. Indeed, vaccination of all broilers and hens may be the only solution once he’s fired all FDA employees — the deepest of the deep staters. With their good riddance, no one will be around to mandate culling of infected chickens. Consequently, all 9 billion chickens in the country could become infected. That would do quite a number on egg prices. Who would oversee the only available option — universal vaccination? My vote would be for Dr. Fauci.

2. We have 313 Air Traffic Control facilities. What number is understaffed?

   a. 285

   b. 241

   c. 177

   d. 130

   e. 75

And the answer is …

The answer is 285 or 91 percent. A total of 23 percent of the facilities are 25 percent or more understaffed.

3. How many people died last year of a drug overdose?

   a. 12,321

   b. 17,999

   c. 44,711

   d. 105,000

   e. 312,278

And the answer is ….

The answer is 105,000. Some 13 percent of Americans age 12 and over use illegal drugs. America’s war on drugs is 54 years old. But drug use is as high as ever despite our spending over $1 trillion on the war. Elon, what about firing all the DEA agents, making drugs legal, but putting on a high enough tax to limit their purchase to far below current levels?

4. What fraction of young American adults live within 100 miles of where they were born?

   a. 20 percent

   b. 40 percent

   c. 60 percent

   d. 80 percent

   e. 90 percent

The answer is …

The answer is 80 percent. Six in ten live within 10 miles.

5. If you invested $10,000 in Bank of America, Chase, or Wells Fargo last year in their standard savings accounts, how much interest did you earn?

   a. $1

   b. $100

   c. $200

   d. $400

   e. $500

And the answer is …

The answer, just reported by the NY Times, is $1, i.e., essentially zero. But the story is worse. Since inflation ran at 2.9 percent last year, the real (after-inflation) interest earned on standard savings accounts in these large, trusted if not trustworthy banks, was negative $289.

6. What fraction of the U.S. workforce are immigrants?

   a. 1 in 10

   b. 1 in 8

   c. 1 in 5

   d. 1 in 3

   e. 1 in 2

And the answer is …

The answer is 1 in 5. Almost 2 million foreign-born workers joined the labor force last year — more than twice the 766,000 increase in the native-born work force. If President Trump succeeds in deporting 13 million allegedly illegal immigrants — 4 percent of the U.S. workforce, he’ll cause a recession, which is marked by two consecutive quarters of declining GDP. Labor’s share of output is roughly 75 percent. Hence, if the 13 million in Trump’s gunsight are as productive as the average U.S. worker, we’re talking about a 3 percentage point drop in GDP. That’s the size of the GDP decline in the Great Recession. If immigrants are, on average, half as productive, output will decline by 1.5 percent — a bit less than the postwar average drop in GDP during recessions.

7. Which is the most densely populated city in the world?

   a. Hong Kong

   b. Moscow

   c. Cairo

   d. Tokyo

   e. London

   f. Manila

And the answer is …

The answer is Manila, which has over 199,000 people per square mile. That’s almost five times New York’s population density. If everyone was living in such dense quarters, it would take only 41,000 square miles to house the planet’s population. That’s less than one thousandth of the planet’s land area.

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