Wonder why we can’t solve problems? Consider BP’s latest ad, what you heard and the word “risk”.
By Daniel Becker
An ad I’ve been seeing recently aired by BP is promoting how much work they are doing to clean up the oil spill. It is designed to leave you feeling comforted that they are on top of it, they are cleaning it up in a massive effort. Say, 29 million gallons of oil and water sucked up. Wow. 29 million gallons.
Ever think about how big that is? Every stop to get out the calculator and crunch a few simple numbers to see how big 29 million is? Did you ask: I wonder how much that is in relation to the guesstimated barrels of oil spilled? Do you even think you need to know? Did it occur to you that maybe, in order to make an informed voting decision, you should see just how big a mess the oil spill is by comparing it to the 29 million gallons BP is impressing people with? You know, figuring it out because there is the possibility that this oil spill thing really is more than you might think as it relates to catastrophes to tell your grand kids about.
No? Yes? Maybe? I don’t know?
June 10th estimates were 25K to 30K barrels per day. June 15th estimates were 35K to 60K barrels per day. Gallons per barrel: 42. 29 million / 42 = 690,476.19 barrels / 25K barrels = 27.62 days of spill.
690,476.19 / 35K = 19.73 days of spill. 690,476.19 / 60K = 11.5 days of spill.
Total number of days of spill: 94 (by my count, can’t get google to answer the question). 27.62 days is 29% of the spill days. 19.73 days is 21% of the spill days. 11.5 days is 12% of the spill days.
But, here’s the rub, not all of the 29 million gallons captured is oil. It is water and oil. Thus, the total amount of oil recovered as presented in number of days of spill is something less. Are you still impressed with BP’s results? Does this make you reconsider your estimate of the risk of oil drilling as it is currently performed?
At 35K barrels per day, there are 3,255,000 barrels of oil spilled. At 60k barrels there are 5,580,000 barrels of oil spilled. Roughly. That is 136,710,000 to 234,360,000 gallons of oil. At 29 million gallons of liquid sucked up, we are talking about 4.7 to 8.1 times the number of days it has taken BP to reach that 29 million mark. Assuming that all 29 million gallons was only oil. But, it was not.
Can you relate the need to do such a simple calculation to the concept of risk? “Yeah, there’s a risk” you may say in response. Are you thinking physical risk? How about the concept of risk as exemplified in the concepts of hedging, credit default swaps and derivatives? Or the economic profession’s use of the word risk? Because if you are only thinking about the physical risk, then BP succeeded in it’s messaging. They succeeded by diverting your mind away from their concern and thus their means, modeling and reference for interpreting life and thus formulating and implementing their intentions. This means the chances of you making the voting decision that best benefits you are slim. Why? Because you failed to walk in their shoes because you listened as if you were the only one in the conversation. Yes, the empathetic concept of walking in someone else shoes does not only serve your ability to help another and sooth your soul, it also protects you from one who would use you.
Still want to know why we can’t solve anything in this nation any more such that your life gets easier or do you get it as to your roll in this democracy now? Our roll is not to just take in the message and see if it fits our individual language of how life works. It is to also understand the messenger and their interpretation of how life works. In BP’s case, life works based on economics. Their reference for words comes from economics. Their understanding of democracy is economic based. Freedom/free market. Liberty/more choices. Fiduciary responsibility/make money. Justice/market clearing price. Free speech/advertizing. One vote/one unit of currency. Rights/market power. Social conscience/consumer reseach.
Want another example of where we have failed as citizens in a democracy? Lets consider the relationship of the fed’s recently reported medicare fraud case involving 94 people and $251 million in false billings (fact, really happened) and the message that private insurance will reduce our costs, that a private insurance system is the best way to go. Or, how about the economic message behind the “private insurance is best” message that the free market is always best. Go ahead. Meld those two thoughts. One that is real, $251 million in fraud found by your government and one that is what? I already have tried and thus wonder: How is it that the private market with all it’s cost controls and managed care systems did not catch $251 million dollars in false payout? You know, considering “market clearing price”, “rational consumer”, “perfect knowledge”, etc, etc, etc. Haven’t heard these terms? I assure you BP et al have ’cause it’s all economic democracy to them.
Some of the largest Qui Tam (citizens bring suit in place of the US Attorney, goes back to suing in English common law for the king) recoveries have been for medicare fraud. There are huge potential for recoveries from war profiteers (US Qui Tam law was enacted in the Civil War, because of trash delivered to the Union Army) but the scams there are harder to uncover since when the specifications are not delivered, but paid for the bases are classified or the defense is there was no time to test. And the accounting too arcane, with inattentive US Attorney’s and no DoJ resources to police the largest scams on earth.
My experience with Qui Tam is the US Attorney lost the file, after you give a long deposition to other agency “investigators”.
Risk of being fleeced is entirely borne by the payors of payroll taxes.
29 m gallons is a drop in the ocean!
well, i couldn’t
follow dan’s numbers, so i ran my own.
29 million gallons is about 4 million cubic feet. or, if i guess a tenth of a foot on the surface, about 40 million square feet. or over a mile square.
now, that is “oil and water” so we don’t know how much bigger the “oil spill” is, but i guess we can guess the answer is “a lot.”
that is, perhaps, still “a drop in the ocean. but it’s still gonna mess things up.
frankly, i find this unsatisfing. trying to pump ourselves up with big numbers just puts us into the same game as the Peterson’s with their Trillions of Dollars of Unfunded Deficits! We would be better to try to understand what is going on that just seein a big number and running around:
“when in trouble, danger, or in doubt
run in circles, scream and shout.”
question is, whether that is humanly possible.
Early in my journo career I realized that pencil and paper were often my best friend, dividing and multiplying on the back of an envelope made sense of things. Our brains aren’t wired to “see” numbers and their relationships (though they could be — Oliver Sacks had a fascinating piece about two twin brothers who used numbers the way we use basic language.)
So turning an impressive number like 29 million into a physical object is helpful. Google tells me there are 7 1/2 gallons in a cubic foot, so 29M gallons are 3.8 million cubic feet which fill a cube 157 feet on a side. Compared to you and me that’s a big object — a 16 story building on a triple lot, more or less. But compared to the Gulf of Mexico, it’s nothing. And I would guess that not more that 25% of that could be oil.
I carry extra envelopes around just for such calculations, as should we all.
Noni
“We would be better to try to understand what is going on that just seein a big number and running around”
The point of the posting. So, I present BP telling everyone how diligent they have been in cleaning up the mess by stating 29 million gallons and ask: Have you considered determining that qualification, “diligent”? Did it even occur to you (everyone) that they should be?
It’s not about how big the spill is in relation to the ocean. It’s about comprehension of what another is speaking to you so that in the end one makes a better decision for reducing their risk. Assuming they even think in terms of risk, physical and economic wise.
Yes, so take 136,710,000 gallons and convert to cubic feet: 21,947,888.59 the building is 907.46 feet per side.
Or 234,360,000 gallons and get 31,329,375.00 cubic feet. Now you have a building 1293.68 (using your 157 number) per side. That is almost 1/4 mile cubed.
This is the potential range of the spill. Or larger.
Sucking up a building 157 ft cubed is not so much now especially considering that building is just oil.
How’s that BP ad looking now. This is not about the size of the spill or the amount of money detected in a fraud case. It is about comprehension, interpretation of what we are hearing and reading as it relates to making a better decision regarding the reduction of risk in both a political and economic venue.
of course if it could all be sucked up and put in a building that size it wouldn’t be a problem. it would be a tank farm.
the problem is when it’s all spread out on the beaches and birds and fish and, yes, dear reader, the insides of you.
divorced one
you have my whole hearted sympathy. i tried explaining some numbers yesterday and got slimed for my trouble.
Mr Peterson spends a lot of money “explaining” numbers to people. only he explains them the way he wants them to see them. just “calculating”, even on the back of an envelope, will not do you any good if you don’t understand the problem.
but yes, people never stop to think about what they are hearing, they just let it remind them of their favorite sound bite and free associate from there.
tangent, not as off topic as you think
the courts ruled that obama could not shut down the deep drilling. what they were saying was that the goverment has no interest in preventing another oil spill.
i have seen enough of the law to know that the law can always be bent either way. so the judges bent it their way because it suits their needs. perhaps it suits their “honest understanding” or perhaps it just suits their high class friends who have a lot of money at stake.
the moral is that when you go to the law, you are not going to get “justice” you are going to get a fairly learned guess by the judges of what is in “the king’s” interest. sometimes that is “the kings peace,” but it’s just as likely to be “the kings purse.”
these folk stand above the congress and the president because they are in fact the interpreters of the kings law, while any given congress, nominally “the king” in our democracy (actually the representatives of “the king” which is us, alas collectively)… any given congress is “merely politicians” acting more or less according to the transient wishes of the mob. the president can do a lot with the laws the congress has enacted, including especially using the powers that have accrued to him as a result of previous enactments, but it is the courts job to decide the extent to which those enactments by congress, and acts of the preseident, are in accord with the longer term interests of “the king.” the mystery, of course, is just who in hell any judge thinks is “the king.”
btw
i was not merely swearing. i mean who in hell literally. or at least figuratively.
How about making it the size of a stack of dollar bills and comparing that stack against the national debt ?
H-Bob
i can’t remember if you are being funny about the misuse of numbers or if you are just really, really worried about the national debt.
I see all these good response to this oil calculation, but to me the important part of the article is how the messaging translates into the politics of marketplace mentality. So long as we let public relations pepper us with these marketplace platitudes either overtly or as pointed out here covertly, we will remain victims. I would like to see more messaging from a non-marketplace metality. Can we talk about how to change the culture of the right, that dominates discourse today, to messages that support another world view?
Bowery
we keep trying.
i tried some yesterday (yes i’m whining about it.) i don’t know if the slimers were paid for their trouble or if the propagandists have just done their jobs so well that these people feel that if don’t repeat the lies they heard they will lose their propagation rights. but they are very intense, not even remotely logical, and everywhere.
Bowery,
“Can we talk about how to change the culture of the right, that dominates discourse today, to messages that support another world view?”
This is a funny comment. Your really exposing “the ends justifies the means” arguement. If you can’t openly defeat your political opponent on the issues in the public square….just trick them into supporting your world view type mentality.
Had it occured to you that this is the mentality that prevents you from ever being able to convince anybody that your world view is valuable? Why would we “change” for the left, the left has not given us the reasons to do so.
If the left wants to get a seat back at the table after 2012….they are gonna have to convince the entire population why it is what they want is good for them without lieing or tricking them. They also need to be patient and explain exactly what it is that they want. The population is going to reject the left regaurdless if they agree or not, because the strategy up till now has been to “force it,” That dog don’t hunt in a country like this. I can see some of that has already started, but the problem here is it’s too late, the left is going to be punished before they are forgivin.
jimi
the mental health issue was on the other thread.
bowery didn’t say anything about lying or tricking anyone. that is the echoes of your own mind.
the left no doubt contains its share of idiots and charlatans, just like the right. it’s called pollitics. but i have noticed that any effort at reasoned discourse with you tends to descend rapidly into… well, into your comic book nightmare world view.
not a lot you can do about this. i suspect well over half the population thinks more or less the same way you do. half of them end up crazy on the left. and half end up crazy on the right. maybe politics is all about seeing who can get enough crazy followers to, for example, man an army if push came to shove.
jimi
i just saw your last comment on the CBO thread. How can you be so reasonable there, and so unreasonable here?
Have you ever read “The Silver Chair”?
i left this comment up, because … well, for lots of reasons. but you need to keep in mind that i don’t know everything either. so if i am too insulting just write it off as just another guy with his own issues.
The incipient perpetual wars so far $1 million millions: 3.5 million foot stack of hundred dollar bills. Somewhat less than a thousand miles.
A stack of hundred dollar bills to buy an Eisenhower class aircraft carrier: $15,000 million dollars: 42,500 feet, about as high as an F-22 might fly.
F-22: $120M per airplane: 420 foot stack of hundreds………….
The stack for the average SS annual receipt: $12,000= .516 inches
So let’s cut social security a millimeter at a time for a lot of people to stack enough hundreds for an aircraft carrier.
A million dollars is 10,000 one-hundred dollar bills. So, 10,000 * 0.010922cm = 109.22cm = 43 inches ~ 3.5 feet.
Coberly,
You missed how he framed his comment.
The framing was “Changeing the Culture of the Right,” well who in the hell does he think he is? As if the Left’s Ideology is Superior…Superior to what?
My message is, “compromise is king.” Nothing is going to get accomplished if the idea is to change your political opponents world view, or to force your world view on those that disagree.
jimi
probably you are right. but i think he was hoping to change the “culture of the right” that dominates american life at the moment. i know you think the socialists are running things. but it doesn’t look that way from here.
and most people, even you and me, think their ideology is superior, though god help me, i try not to have any ideology.
‘cept maybe Pogo’s.
you can’t force a world view. you can impose by fear and force, or by inspiration and example. in america we have both but used to be at least hopefully commited to the latter.
before they discovered “interrogation techniques.”
and it is important to remember that he probably does not mean what you mean by culture of the right.
i am a bit of a conservative myself about the things that matter. but these days “the right” means a government commited to the idea that if you take care of the rich they will take care of you.
and of course the idea that because some guy who lives in a cave figured out a way to do us in the eye, we have to give up our freedom and run around the world making enemies.