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Have you ever asked yourself why on earth a textbook is $200?
I was always asking myself that question, too.
On one side, I thought it was a complete racket, a horrible monopoly. Then the other side, the side I got from my mother, said, “Yes well look at all the hard work that goes into writing a textbook; you know if you wrote one yourself, you would ask a hefty price for it too.”
I’m no longer torn on this issue however. It’s because textbook publishers are the greediest, most despicable humans on earth. I have hard evidence.
First problem in my engineering economics book: “A new college graduate has a job with Boeing Aerospace. She plans to borrow $10,000 now to help in buying a car …” Really? Is that the extent to which they integrate economics and engineering? I will admit that it did make me feel more connected to the girl in the problem, but I don’t think that’s supposed to be the goal of an economics word problem.
Then I come across the next sample problem: “Last year, Jane’s grandmother offered to put enough money into a savings account to generate $1,000 this year to help pay Jane’s expenses at college. (a) Identify the symbols, and (b) calculate the amount that had to be deposited exactly one year ago to earn $1,000 in interest now, if the rate of return is 6 percent per year.”
So let me get this straight. Jane’s grandmother, who probably can barely see the check that she and her husband had promised themselves, decided “Someday when that little darling grows up, she’s going to go to college and get a proper education, her old granddaddy’s going to see to that” and scrimped and saved, for what would prove to be Jane’s grandfather’s last 15 years, so that she could have a better life, and instead of getting out a pen and paper and writing a thank you letter to her sweet grandmother, she gets out a pen and paper to calculate exactly how much the old lady put away so she could determine, at the very minimum, how much cash she’ll get when she finally croaks?
What’s even more pathetic is that I don’t think the author’s included this problem to try and brainwash us. I think they included it because they honestly believe that this is how normal people behave.
Though I haven’t read the book in its entirety, God only knows what else they have in there.
Your mother was having chest pains and your father drove her to the hospital. The pain was getting exponentially worse so he had to drive 40 mph faster than the speed limit. A police officer, who has a drinking buddy that is an engineer for NASA, pulled him over and didn’t believe the chest pain story, so your father was arrested.
The bail is $5,000; you’re the only one that can bail him out because your mother died. (a) How much money would you lose or gain, in penalties and interest, if you cash in your six-month CD? (b) Use Excel to graph both options. (c) Which option makes the most fiscal sense?
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