Exasperated Calculator

Helen’s present to me this year was this lovely kitten:

His name is Winston (as he’s a British Shorthair). A few more pictures:

The PNG Department of Treasury has some positions vacant. From the list:

Assistant Secretary(GEP) K31,289 plus other allowances

Or about $16,000 Australian. I don’t think I’ll apply…

(Of course, that’s about 18 times PNG’s GDP per capita, while I only earn a bit over two times Australian GDP per capita).

As you can see, I’m trying to post a bit more often now. I’m going to try and post around three things every day. We’ll see how long this lasts: my money is on less than a week…

(If I go really nuts I might actually finish writing the template for this blog too).

Update: Yep, I did go nuts. It’s pretty buggy though, so hold on to your hat.

Good Riddance!

So: next question – is Mercury a planet?

I think I’ll go get my order in…

Via Marginal Revolution is this neat map of Starbucks and McDonalds’ global reach..

The thing does raise a bit of a rant in me. The chart shows McDonalds as having global sales of $41 billion, which is compared to the GDP of Afghanistan ($21 billion). The message from this is meant to be ‘Wow, McDonalds is twice as big as Afghanistan’. The only problem is that it’s just not true!

GDP is measured in ‘value added’ terms. Only new economic activity is counted. In particular, the cost of inputs (such as burgers, buns and fries) is not counted. So for a company like McDonalds it’s ‘GDP’ is actually equal to its profit on goods sold plus wages and salaries paid to employees, which would be far less than their total sales.

What’s my point? My point is that the world economy is almost incomprehensibly huge, and that even gigantic, omni-present companies such as McDonalds are only a tiny, tiny part of it. Misleading comparisons, such as comparing total sales revenue to GDP figures, takes away some of that sense of scale.

(As an aside, you can calculate a very rough ‘sales’ figure for an economy, using the input-output tables that are occasionally published in the National Accounts. In 2001-02, the most recent figures, Australia had a GDP of $890 billion, but had total supplies (‘sales’) of $2,457 billion.)

Weight: 107.3kg

Breakfast: None

Lunch: Vegemite Sandwich

Dinner: Tomato Soup, Turkey & Vegetables, Christmas Pudding

Steps: 4,941

Snacks: None

Weight: 105.9kg

Breakfast: None

Lunch: Vegemite Sandwich

Dinner: Lemon Chicken with Rice

Snacks: None

Steps: 4,463

Weight: 105.9kg

Breakfast: None

Lunch: Vegemite Sandwich

Dinner: Rogan Josh with Rice

Snacks: Cheese & Biscuits

Steps: 6,450

Weight: 106.6kg

Breakfast: None (too busy!)

Lunch: Vegemite Sandwich

Dinner: Mince with pesto & tomatoes

Snacks: None

Steps: 5,844