Big Money Maths Part 3: Intro to Operations

 If you read thru Part 2, you already know all you will ever need to know to tackle Big Money. And if you read thru Part 1, you know more than you will ever need if your reading language of choice is Modern English. But you may still feel apprehensive. Universities offer Master Degrees in Accounting and Ph.D's in Economics, and they must be teaching something, right?

Fear not.  Accountants spend their training learning to get results precise to the last penny, based on the documentation made available to them. The additions must be correct, but the facts don't have to be. As for Economists, for every economist saying something there is another economist saying the exact opposite. Ever heard the phrase "on the other hand"? Economists never run out of "other hands". That's their special superpower.

Still, there are two mathematical operations that we all must master to deal intelligently with Big Money Numbers, to wit: 1) Counting, and 2) Comparing.

As for counting, we learn all the counting we will ever need by the age of seven, but we also learn to be cowed by the "lions" (the milLIONS, the bilLIONS, and the trilLIONS), so we need to do some unlearning here rather than learning. Psychologists call this type of unlearning "desensitizing". Here is how you go about getting yourself "desensitized":

Ready? Take a few deep breaths, and SLOWLY read aloud the following 3 lines:

"one million, two millions, three millions, four millions ..."

"one billion, two billions, three billions, four billions ..."

 "one trillion, two trillions, three trillions, four trillions ... "

Rinse and repeat as needed. Don't waste your money on psychologists.

I wish "comparing" were as simple and straightforward as "counting", but unfortunately A) it is, and B) it kind of is, and yet C) it definitely is not. Every Big Money Gazer will be confronted by at least 3 different levels of "comparing". The lowest IS just as easy and simple as counting, and mostly we all have it mastered by age seven. The second level KIND OF IS just as simple, and I think anybody that cares has it mastered by the age of fourteen. If you are reading this, you do care, and you do have it mastered.

But there is at least a third level of comparing that DEFINTELY IS NOT simple. It may look simple, and it often feels simple, but that is probably the reason why most of us get tripped badly every now and then. 

Kooky, isn't it? Well, take some time off to laugh at me and my deep obsession with "comparing". But after you have laughed enough, go to Part 4 of Big Money Maths, because comparing is where much of the fun of Big Money Gazing really is. Granted, "acquiring" and "having" Big Money could really be a lot more fun, but I don't have a clue about these last two operations, so ...