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Innumerate? Bring me a beer!

This is another classic email making the rounds;

If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00. With Enron, you would have $16.50 left of the original $1000. With WorldCom, you would have less than $5.00 left. If you had purchased $1000.00 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $49.00 left. If you had purchased United Airlines, you would have nothing left. But, if you had purchased $1000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, and then turned in the cans for recycling, you would have $214.00. Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle. This is called the 401-Keg Plan.

It’s getting a bit old, as it started right after the netcom bubble, but it was wrong even then. Here’s the math for you. Even if the deposits were in addition to that $1000, this works out to 23 cents per can or $5.60 per case of beer. Is any beer under $12 a case? Does anyone read this and just say “enough, the math doesn’t work.”?

{ 2 comments… add one }
  • Bradley S October 21, 2008, 7:43 pm

    I haven’t paid under $12 in quite a long time, well before the dotcom bubble. Some emails just keep making the rounds.

  • Budgets are Sexy October 21, 2008, 9:18 pm

    hah! and to think i believed that quote until you started analyzing 😉

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