Jon sent me an interesting link on a different way to visualize the relative size of the proposed budget cuts:
That struck me as a pretty good analogy. I wondered: if you do the math, what part of a Big Mac Extra Value Meal would a $6 billion budget cut represent?
The arithmetic is pretty simple, due to the extensive nutrition information that McDonalds makes available online. A Big Mac Extra Value Meal has three components: a Big Mac, a large order of french fries, and a medium soda. The McDonalds site tells us that a Big Mac has 540 calories, a large fries has 570 and a medium Coke has 210, for a total of 1,320 calories.
Meanwhile, the federal budget is currently around $3.8 trillion, which means that a $6 billion cut represents one 633rd of the total. What would be an equivalent cut in a Big Mac Extra Value Meal?
One variable is not readily available online; that is, how many french fries are there in a large order? To answer that question, I went to a nearby McDonalds at lunch time, paid for a large order of fries, and counted them. There were 87. (I counted fries regardless of size, but did not count the hard bits in the bottom of the container.)
This allows us to complete the calculation. If there are 570 calories in a large order of fries, and 87 fries per order, each french fry, on the average, contains 6.5 calories. One 633rd of the total calorie content of a Big Mac Extra Value Meal is 1,320/633, or 2.1 calories. That equals almost exactly one-third of an average sized french fry.
A Big Mac Extra Value Meal has three components a Big Mac a large order of french fries and a medium soda. The McDonalds site tells us that a Big Mac has 540 calories a large fries has 570 and a medium Coke has 210 for a total of 1 320 calories….Meanwhile the federal budget is currently around 3.8 trillion which means that a 6 billion cut represents one 633rd of the total. What would be an equivalent cut in a Big Mac Extra Value Meal?…One variable is not readily available online that is how many french fries are there in a large order?
Comment by business daily — March 21, 2011 @ 05:56