The Financial Riddler -- 9/09/24
Try these out on your co-workers.
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What percent of Americans ages 40-49 spend more than 6 hours per week on video games?
a. 2 percent
b. 3 percent
c. 4 percent
d. 5 percent
e. 39 percent
And the answer is …
The answer is 39 percent. An amazing 14 percent spend the equivalent of two or more working days on this extremely addictive activity. Time is money or it used to be. For many Americans, our tax/benefit system provides a perfectly rational rationale for fighting opponents, conquering empires, and doing all the other important things available in Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto, Wii, PuGB Universe, Mario Kart, Red Dead, etc.
Our “benevolent” politicians lock tens of millions of us, particularly low-wage workers, out of the workforce. It hands us peanuts, saying: Just be happy you aren’t dead and do thank us for keeping you alive. But, beware. If you earn beyond a modicum, we’re taking those peanuts away. Then you’ll starve.
We like to keep you poor. This way we can keep adding more exploding peanuts policies to make us look good and leave you no incentive, at the margin, to work. So, take our advice. Spend your time on video games, Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, … .
If both parties are going to continue their decades-long charade of providing poverty relief, they should at least let Food Stamps be spent on books. This may get a few video-game addicts to read an explicative-deleted book.
How much of the 2021 Biden-Harris $1.1 trillion infrastructure bill has been spent to date?
a. 100 percent
b. 80 percent
c. 60 percent
d. 40 percent
e. less than 20 percent
And the answer is …
The answer is less than 20 percent. Take funds provided to the Department of Transportation to relocate highways — highways that intentionally divided dozens of major cities, keeping poor minorities physically separate from middle class and rich majorities. Less than 4 percent of these monies have been spent. Part of the delay lies with the states and cities that need to develop re-redevelopment plans. But it would be nice to know why so little has been accomplished for so long. One piece of good news concerns electric charging stations. Close to 192,000 charging ports have been installed nationwide, with 1,000 more being added weekly. What happens to these and other specific parts of the infrastructure bill if President Trump is re-elected. The answer is unclear. He would certainly have the means to limit or kill projects that help cities, which, as a group, don’t seem to appreciate that they were made great again. Perhaps MAGA should be changed to MAGGA — Make America Greater than Great Again.
Germany currently has 46 million workers out of 53 million people of working age. How many workers will Germany have in 2050?
a. 83 million
b. 77 million
c. 61 million
d. 51 million
e. 38 million
f. 30 million
And the answer is …
The answer is 38 million assuming the number of workers shrinks in proportion to the working-age population. See the striking chart below. Italy is on course to lose roughly one quarter of its workforce by mid century!
How many of the eight Americans taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, 2023 have been murdered by Hamas?
a. None
b. Half
c. All
And the answer is …
The answer is half. The answer “None” is the answer to the question of how many missions our military has conducted to rescue our countrymen. Why is this? Our President has lots of complaints about what Israel is doing, some certainly justified. Yet, he and the Vice President have sat back and done nothing directly to rescue our people let alone all the other Israeli and other foreign hostages. Surely, President Trump’s first debate question to Vice President Harris will be, “Why did you let Hamas kill four Americans without moving a finger to rescue them?” She needs an answer.
What’s the minimum price these days for a kidney on the black market?
a. $25K
b. $50K
c. $75K
e. $500K
And the answer is …
The answer is $50K according to the Canadian House of Parliament. At the upper range, the price is $120K.
Between 2013 and 2023, U.S. real GDP per capita grew by 19 percent. By what percentage did Japanese real GDP per capita grow?
a. 5 percent
b. 8 percent
c. 10 percent
d. 15 percent
e. 25 percent
And the answer is …
The answer is 8 percent. Moreover, relative to the dollar, the Yen has depreciated 30 percent over the decade. Consequently, the Japanese living standard has dropped by 17 percent (1.08/1.30) compared to the U.S. living standard in just 10 years! Having just checked the price of hotel rooms in Tokyo, this appears to be a good time to visit.
A football field is 360 feet long. How long is the world’s longest wind turbine blade?
a. 121 feet
b. 177 feet
c. 290 feet
d. 323 feet
e. 430 feet
And the answer is …
The answer is 430 feet. China’s wind turbine producer, Sany, is making the world’s biggest wind turbine. Just one of these new turbines will be able to power 15,000 homes! That’s a lot. Powering all of China’s homes via wind would, it seems, require about 30,000 turbines occupying about 2 percent of China’s total land mass. But my crude estimate may be miles off base.