KNJ On The Budget
O Most Dread and Awful Czar,
As is the unfortunate custom with all things numerate, the media discussions concerning the most recent round of budget nonsense from our elite overlords have never provided any useful context for consideration. As they say in the ‘hood, “Lemme break it down for ya.”
Suppose you are the head of a small household, struggling to get by on $4,000 per month take home pay. You sit down, total up an average month’s spending, and realize that you spend $7,028 per month. The astute reader will recognize that this is $3,028 more than our hero has available to spend. You say to yourself, “Self, this can’t continue.” So, you think really hard and come up with $71 in budget cuts – you know, brownbag a few times a week, watch less pay-per-view, that kind of thing. Now you’ve got your monthly deficit all the way down to $2,957. Having satisfied yourself that you have done all that could possibly be expected of you, you retire to the local eatery for a (modest) celebratory meal to appropriately acknowledge your newfound solid fiscal footing.
When put it this way, doesn’t it all seem rather moronic? I certainly applaud the cuts—they’re better than nothing, and certainly better than the spending increases our Dear Leader asked for, but since the cuts for an entire year are on the order-of-magnitude of our weekly deficit, a grown-up might be tempted to say, “If it was this hard to get this little, how much more can we expect out of this current crew of self-important morons?” Even Ryan’s budget proposal, strong though it may be, is insufficient to truly right our fiscal ship.
Spreading mathematical joy and cheer as always,
—Dr. (KN)J
Royal Mathematician to the Gormogons
P.S.: all numbers in my example are rounded so as to make the magnitude of the cuts larger than they actually are.
Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.