This morning I posted the following question on
Twitter. "
Your Math Puzzler of the Day : If Willard "Mitt" Romney drops a twenty on the sidewalk, is it worth his time to bend over and pick it up?"
I didn't know the answer myself when I tweeted the question, but I had the feeling that it would be a close call.
Now I've done the math and I have two answers.
- Based on income, the surprising answer is Yes! He has reported his estimated 2011 income as $20,900,00.00. If we assume for the sake of argument that he actually "worked" for this investment income at a rate of 40/hrs week and 52/wks year, his hourly pay would be $10,048.07 per hour, or $167.47 per minute, or $2.79 per second. So, if Mitt could pick up that twenty-dollar bill in less than 7.17 seconds, it would be worth his valuable time to bend over!
- Based on net worth, the answer is No, keep walking and let some pauper pick up your loose portrait of Andrew Jackson. If we accept a commonly reported net worth of $250,000,000.00 for Mr. Romney, then $20.00 represents 0.000008% of that quarter of a billion dollars. Let's compare that to a more normal net worth of $250,000.00, which might be closer to yours and mine. 0.000008% of that 250K would be two cents. I think we might not miss a step for those two loose pennies.
It's a silly question anyway. I'm sure he has someone to carry his money for him. He looks like a germophobe to me, and you don't know where that stuff's been.
