Ok, this is a departure from my normal biotech / research stuff, but there’s so much internet-stupidity going on that I want to post something about basic financial math.
Everyone has their panties in a bunch because the iPhone 3G costs less up front but “costs more over the life of the contract!” This is a bunch of crap, and people who believe that are also going to get screwed when they buy a car or a house.
Here’s the thing: you cannot compare 2 financial deals simply by adding up all of the payments and seeing which is bigger, because there is such a thing as the “time value of money.”
Continue reading ‘iPhone 3G costs are unchanged over first gen’
There was an interesting article in the New York Times regarding the surprisingly large impact that the farm bill has on many aspects of life in the US and abroad. A pithy excerpt:
Compared with a bunch of carrots, a package of Twinkies, to take one iconic processed foodlike substance as an example, is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget. So how can the supermarket possibly sell a pair of these synthetic cream-filled pseudocakes for less than a bunch of roots?
Continue reading ‘Why does a twinkie cost less than a carrot?’