Comments on: Trillion: Typo in Bailout Nation

By: Greg0658

Greg0658 — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:36:05 +0000

lol .. classic
I haven’t done any math on the subject .. was thinking this equation would look good on Einsteins blackboard …
was wondering why 72 years .. is that an average life now? an important person # of years on earth? maybe average years working towards retirement?
the Einstein blackboard should do the calc going from time of the big bailouts to conclusion (if ever) with # of Trillion$ involved transfigured into them years

reading on the calculation .. the corrected number .. should be a slightly smaller number of years .. because the extra day .. after division would do that … so I’m not sure what/where any #s came from

back to the book .. read last week in TBP that the hype tour is still in full swing and was wondering if Chicago is on the bus stop? will check further down and around … still enjoy the blog .. just toning down the care/canfix the squeaky wheel

By: evodevo

evodevo — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:41:04 +0000

Just got my copy of Bailout Nation from amazon – love it. Going to send copies out to all my long-suffering friends and relatives whom I have been inundating with emails since this all began in ‘07.

By: APB

APB — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:06:09 +0000

Barry: What did you do with my 0.088 years?

By: Imelda Blahnik

Imelda Blahnik — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:09:10 +0000

dayam! this completely messes up my investment strategy.

By: Barry Ritholtz

Barry Ritholtz — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:44:28 +0000

I called it a typo because it was caught before the book went to press and the corrected data was submitted as an adjustment — one of 100s of last minute minor changes done, some more last minute than others. This was one that did not make it into the final version of the book.

If there is a paperback or an expanded and revised version, it will get fixed there

By: Brendan

Brendan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:04:34 +0000

Oh, wow, now I’m really confused. If you miscalculated using a shorter 365-day year than the “average” year of roughly 365.2475 days, you should have come up with a larger number of years in the book, not a smaller one. By my calculations it takes roughly 39,710 365-day years to get to a trillion, which makes sense based on my previous statement that a shorter year will give you a larger result. Your “iPod” appears to be right. So it seems that even that definition doesn’t explain the number in the book.

Either way, it’s technically much more likely to be a “miscalculation,” and not a “typo.” A typo would have resulted in a number that looks close to the right answer but probably has one misplaced or wrong digit. So now you have exposed a “miscalculation” in your book and have “word misuse” on your blog. And is “iPod” really the “typo?” Aren’t you really using your iPhone to do the calculation? Maybe you’d better just stop while you’re ahead and just blame it on that first publisher throwing off your mojo!

By: yoganmahew

yoganmahew — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:42:11 +0000

Leap years are a function of our dark overlords to make us work an extra day every four years. In the coming emergency, there will be leap days every six months. You are right to ignore them…

Um, back to the worry beads and the gin…

By: gloppie

gloppie — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:27:18 +0000

That’s why nothing was making sense for the last year and half !

By: icenined

icenined — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:05:21 +0000

I haven’t done the math, but if you left out a number of days in the original calculation, shouldn’t the corrected number of years be fewer, not more, than the original?

By: Economic Darwinism

Economic Darwinism — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:45:38 +0000

Thanks for clarifying. That was really bugging me

Have a Happy 4th!