Power Line Does the French Fried Math
John Hinderaker, friend and podcaster, figures out exactly how to describe a $6 billion cut in the federal budget. A cut that the Washington Post describes as "slashing."
How slashing? Hinderaker does some useful math. He compares the federal budget to a McDonald's meal:
The arithmetic is pretty simple, due to the extensive nutrition information that McDonalds makes available online. A Big Mac Extra Value Meal has three components: a Big Mac, a large order of french fries, and a medium soda. The McDonalds site tells us that a Big Mac has 540 calories, a large fries has 570 and a medium Coke has 210, for a total of 1,320 calories.
Meanwhile, the federal budget is currently around $3.8 trillion, which means that a $6 billion cut represents one 633rd of the total. What would be an equivalent cut in a Big Mac Extra Value Meal?
One variable is not readily available online; that is, how many french fries are there in a large order? To answer that question, I went to a nearby McDonalds at lunch time, paid for a large order of fries, and counted them. There were 87. (I counted fries regardless of size, but did not count the hard bits in the bottom of the container.)
This allows us to complete the calculation. If there are 570 calories in a large order of fries, and 87 fries per order, each french fry, on the average, contains 6.5 calories. One 633rd of the total calorie content of a Big Mac Extra Value Meal is 1,320/633, or 2.1 calories.
Okay, now that we know that, how much is a $6 billion cut worth? John calculates:
That equals almost exactly one-third of an average sized french fry.
Not even a whole fry. One third of a fry. If someone takes one third of a fry from my french fry packet, I don't even notice. (If someone takes a whole fry, of course, I go insane....)
But that's it. That's all we've cut. So the next time someone says "slashing cuts" or "draconian rollbacks," think about taking a small bite out of the picture above.
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Comments :
Oct '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
That image is disgusting.
Oct '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
Here is another illustration of this situation (from CNS News yesterday):
U.S. Debt Jumped $72 Billion Same Day U.S. House Voted to Cut Spending $6 Billion
Now there is a problem!
May '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
Some would have us believe that by slowly nibbling on a third of a fry at a time, we will finish the pack before another batch can be greased and salted.
The fryer is still on.
Oct '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
At that rate, we will simply fade away into history before we have enough energy to go bang.
Jun '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
Seems to me McDonald's is not the only organization in the country employing a clown!
Dec '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
I liken the $6B cut to Michael Moore picking the lint from is navel prior to stepping on a scale in order to get a more favorable reading.
There's your disgusting image.
Edited on Mar 18, 2011 at 5:55pmDec '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
Until Congress spends less than pre-stimulus levels they haven't cut a dang thing. Obama's budget cements the stimulus into the baseline (Podcast 51 subject), and that is driving me quite batty. Even the good guys like Ryan say "2008 spending levels" instead of the more appropriate "pre-stimulus spending levels." The stimulus was an extra Big Mac added to the meal. Dieting isn't cutting out half a fry, it's dropping the extra sandwich and half the fries. Substituting the diet Coke is all Congress seems willing to do.
Mar '11
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
How many liberals can dance on the point of a french fry?
Dec '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
There are two problems with the Big Mac meal metaphor. First, it's hard to relate french fries to bites of Big Mac to sips of Coke: the notion of how much or how little one-third of a fry represents gets blurred in the dissimilar comparisons.
Second, most people don't like to think of their food getting taken away. A better metaphor would compare deficit spending to something undesirable.
A typical residential septic tank (for a 2- to 3-bedroom house) has a capacity of 1,000 gallons. Say that this represents the amount the Federal government could spend without spending "overflowing" past the capacity of revenues: $2.2 trillion this year.
The deficit, $1.6 trillion, is 72 percent of the revenue capacity: our spending septic tank is overflowing by 720 gallons of waste.
And $6 billion in reduction is like scooping up 2.7 gallons of the muck -- at the same time that another 92 gallons of the stuff spews out into the backyard.
Congress won't even stop the flood of sewage, much less clean up the filthy mess they've already dumped all over us.
Mar '11
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
So . . . what you're saying is that the people running our Government finances are 1/3 of a fry short of a Happy Meal. This all gives me the same feeling I get when I go through the drive-thru and get home to find out they got my order wrong. Of course, with our Government, I'd get home to find out they shorted me everything: the drink, the fries, the burger, and even the napkins. And charged me for lobster, caviar, and champagne.
May '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
Is there a Twinkie metric for that analysis?
Jan '11
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
I think the folks who count the frys already get it. The voters who count the calories (at a mcDonalds!) are the ones who need extra help.
Jul '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
I'm with you, except I want spending cut to 2000 levels, before George W Bush went on his spending spree.
Dec '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
Kenneth
I'm with you, except I want spending cut to 2000 levels, before George W Bush went on his spending spree. · Mar 18 at 8:24pm
Baby steps. In '08 the deficit was manageable.
May '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
The King Prawn
Kenneth
I'm with you, except I want spending cut to 2000 levels, before George W Bush went on his spending spree. · Mar 18 at 8:24pm
Baby steps. In '08 the deficit was manageable. · Mar 18 at 8:34pm
Kenneth, the easy and fast way to get there is to cap the debt and force the Govt. to spend equal to or less than revenues, which will run between 18%-19% of GDP. I am with you on this.
King Prawn, The 08 deficit was perhaps manageable as a one shot event in 08. Unfortunately the 08 deficit lead to the 09 deficit which lead to the 10 deficit and on to 011. After around $4,000,000,000,000+ of deficits, another 08 event doesn't work.....or would be acceptable (to me) only as a very temporary stop gap while a truly manageable budget is prepared.
Jun '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
You know that narrow space between the console and driver's seat of your car? The one that no human hand can reach into.
There are several petrified McDonald's fries down there--and they've been there a long, long time. Had I known that each is (metaphorically) worth $18 billion, I'd have been after them long ago.
Oct '10
Re: Power Line Does the French Fried Math
tabula rasa: You know that narrow space between the console and driver's seat of your car? The one that no human hand can reach into.
There are several petrified McDonald's fries down there--and they've been there a long, long time. Had I known that each is (metaphorically) worth $18 billion, I'd have been after them long ago. · Mar 19 at 8:30am
A new gold rush!