Chuck Todd's Math is Off

[erpowers]

No wonder the media loves Paul Ryan's budget so much. There math is off. This morning on the show The Daily Rundown, Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie, were interviewing Becky Quick about her show The American Tax Cheat. During the coversation Quick noted that the IRS claims that each year there is a so called tax gap of about $300 billion. At the end of the segment Todd stated that they had done some back of the envolope math and that realized that $300 billion over ten years added up to $1.3 trillion. Todd is wrong. $300 billion over ten years adds up to $3 trillion. I do not have video of this incident, but maybe someone can find the video.

[Scuba]

1. Yeah, but it's "math" and "math" is a "science", so it's just a leftist scheme anyway. n/t

[Tippy]

2. Todd is so full of shit his eyes must be brown........

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

3. Money math is funny math

If you start collecting $300 million a year for the next ten years, you could sum it up to $3 trillion.

Or, you could calculate that the $300 million a year for the next ten years has a net present value of $1.3 trillion, which varies based on expected return on investments, etc.

The same sort of math works for lotteries: If you won a lottery that pays 1 million a year for 20 years, you can generally elect to take it all in one lump sum. That lump sum will not be $20 million, it will be much less because of the net-present-value calculation.

I didn't see the show, so have no idea what Chuck Todd was talking about.

:hi:

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Why would anybody need a back of an envelope to multiply $300 billion by 10? Any 5th. grader can do

that in their head!

[Igel]

8. Nonsense.

I watched a group of 25 10th and 11th graders struggle to multiply 73 x 10.

There were 20 requests for calculators. The other 5 were too uncertain to speak up. I had to *teach* high school kids that to multiple a number by 10 you move the decimal point one place to the right--adding a zero if necessary.

These were the same kids who said that 10 x 80 / 5 was completely different from 10 / 5 x 80, that I couldn't simplify 10 x 80 / 5 to 2 x 80. That 1/2 + 1/3 = 1/5.

The same group that needed calculators to say what 98/2 was.

That was first period. This was followed by 5 more periods.

Some just didn't get it. Then again, most of these kids also round numbers like 1283 down to 198 or 13. Yup, rounding 1283 "up" means reducing it to 13, two orders of magnitude. They didn't understand what role "0" plays in numbers like 100.

Ah, youth are our future.

[sinkingfeeling]

12. OMG. I know that there are folks out there with no math skills, just didn't think it was in the

schools like that!

I ordered a 'small, sausage gravy & biscuits' Sunday morning for $1.99, but they rang it up as a 'sausage biscuit' for $1.30. I paid for it and waited for it to appear. When I refused the biscuit sandwich, I told the cashier that I owed her more money. She rang up the correct amount, for a total of $3.44 and then took the old receipt of $2.67, turned it over and did this calculation:

$2.67 minus $3.44 = ???

I told her I owed her $.77.

[Shiver]

11. I'm 25 and I can't do that in my head.

Not quickly, anyway.

[sinkingfeeling]

13. Wow, it's just shifting decimal places.

[Shiver]

14. Math is my weak point.

Ask me about classical literature instead. ;)

[sinkingfeeling]

15. OK. Could you give me a quick run down on Beowulf?

[Shiver]

16. There's no such thing as a quick rundown on Beowulf.

There are so many competing literary arguments going one way or another in terms of the symbolism and thematic elements. Beowulf himself is the archetype, arguably, for the modern definition of the hero, fighting to protect those who cannot protect themselves rather than obtain personal glory...

But you want a quick rundown, not an in-depth analysis. Okay - The poem explores the heroic deeds of a warrior through two phases of his life. In his youth Beowulf fights and defeats two monsters, Grendel and Grendel's mother, then goes on to become king of the Geats, The second phase is in his later life, fifty years later, when a thief disturbs a barrow in which dwells a dragon with it's hoard. Enraged, the dragon retaliates by raining fiery death upon the Geats, and Beowulf, sensing the end of his life coming, goes to fight and kill the dragon, at the expense of his own life.

That's about as succinct as I can make it, other than to say it is 'the chronicle of the life of a noble hero'. Clearly, both descriptions do not do it justice.

:toast:

[dorkulon]

5. I just posted on another pile of BS those two brought us today

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x889750

They are participating in an active misinfo campaign if you ask me.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

6. *Not intended to be a factual statement.

[Bandit]

7. Don't say Todd is wrong or Savannah is wrong, say MSNBC is wrong

Make the Network responsible for what they air. Nothing will ever change unless the blame gets placed appropriately. I am fairly certain Todd could give a darn what you think of him but the Network cares whether they get a reputation of providing false information..Fox doesn't though, in fact I think they revel in it.

[Zoeisright]

9. Fuck Todd is off.

Off his meds, off his rocker, etc.

[Hubert Flottz]

10. Chuck and Andrea are republican to the core.

They belong on FOX.