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Ralph Klein has gone and it is time to retire Ralph's World. Thanks to all of you who have supported this venture by contributing material and through your comments. It has been fun.
Should we get another blog underway? Let me know your thoughts by e-mailing me at johnnyslow@gmail.com.
John Slow
January 1, 2007
Friday, February 24, 2006
Pesky Decimal Points
Premier Klein is shown here explaining to a group of journalists how a simple misplaced decimal point along with a misunderstanding about how zeros work caused him to think that healthcare spending was out of control.The following quote from a story in today's Edmonton Journal explains the problem.
"During Thursday's question period, Klein made gaffes while trying to defend his plans for health care. In an effort to justify the need for shaking up the system, Klein insisted at least six times that requests from health authorities totalled $100.6 billion for the coming year.
He then downgraded that figure
to $10.6 billion, only to later revise it to $1.6 billion. "I was wrong in my math, it was actually $1.6 billion," he said."
"As Shirley (Finance Minister Shirley McClellan) pointed out to me, those decimal points and zeros really make a difference" he explained.
"So I'm pleased to announce that we don't need any more of that "Third Way" stuff because it turns out I've got $99 billion a year more than I thought. We'll put $9 billion a year into healthcare and we'll still have $90 billion a year to spread amoung the folk which works out to $30,000/year/Albertan.
Have I got those decimal points right Shirl?"
