March 15, 2005
Math teacher mode: On
You may not know this, but one of my multiple personalities is a math teacher, Mr. Cosineovich. Every now and then, he comes out to lecture, berate and otherwise generate fear in the hearts of children between the ages of 15 and 18. Today, Mr. Cosineovich woke up, walked out of his house in a wealthy, white neighborhood and found a copy of the Examiner wrapped in plastic just in case the distributor hired a disease-carrying minority to handle getting the precious, caucasian newspaper to its precious, causasian readers. Settling down to his morning coffee (he doesn't need the stimulant, just the bad breath to scare the kids), he saw an article on drug importation with this paragraph:
"Those escalating estimates have a silver lining, though. They make it likely that the Senate will pass the Pharmaceutical Market Access & Drug Safety Act (S.#334/H.R. 700) this year. The bill would allow certified wholesalers and pharmacies to import Canadian and European drugs, whose prices are 3 to 300 percent less than U.S. prices."
A few things will get Mr. Cosineovich flying into a rage: chewing gum, not showing your work and messing up percent increases or decreases.
This is how it works. If your $100 bottle of Cialis is available online from Moosejaw Pharmacy for $1, you are getting a 99% discount. If a man in Moosejaw suddenly finds himself in need of an erection during his American vacation, he will find that prices are 10,000 percent higher here compared to his pharmacy back home. The point is that when you're cutting prices, you can't offer a discount beyond 100 percent unless you're giving someone money to take your product.
Class over.
Posted by rj3 at March 15, 2005 3:39 PM
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Comments
I have a similar alter ego, who doesn't really have a name, but goes nuts about stupid statistical statements. For instance, in a paper I'm reviewing for work, 'evidence' that there is too much undiagnosed and untreated excessive substance use/abuse going on:
One household survey found that whereas the use of illegal drugs varied from 6.3-7.7% depending on the state, and the self-perceived need for drug or alcohol treatment ranged from 1.2-1.3% of the population, only 0.3-0.8% obtained any formal substance abuse treatment.
Now, I don't know about you, but I know a lot of people who *use* drugs, in the maybe-once-a-month sense, who certainly don't need any kind of treatment or diagnosis for it. It's the very small percentage of users who are also abusers who need formal treatment. Also, for those numbers to mean anything at all, the latter two need to be expressed in terms of the first, not in terms of the population. Nitwits.
Posted by: Michael at March 15, 2005 5:10 PM