I was looking into the recent news that Mitt Romney has significant holdings in offshore Cayman Islands investments (potentially permitting him to pay fewer taxes, at the expensive of the American government), and I found this little tidbit, which struck me as strange: The margin of error on how much Mitt Romney is worth is plus-or-minus $90 million.
That's not how much he's worth, it's the margin of error as to how much he's worth, because apparently Mitt Romney is worth so much money, even he doesn't know how much money it really is. From the WSJ:
The Wall Street Journal analyzed Mr. Romney's latest federal financial-disclosure report, filed in August, to glean clues about his tax strategy.
The same disclosure form estimated Mr. Romney's full wealth at between $84.8 million and $264.7 million. His campaign has said the actual figure is toward the upper end of that range, or $190 million to $250 million.Get that? In an effort to downsize the damage, the Romney campaign is now saying that the margin of error is "only" plus-or-minus $30 million. Think about how much you're worth - add the equity in your home, your retirement savings, your bank accounts, your equity in your car, and whatever things you own in the house. It takes a little math, but I'm betting your margin of error is maybe a few thousand dollars? Maybe ten thousand or twenty thousand if we're "really" pushing it.
Romney's "margin of error" is more than most of us will ever make in our entire lives, and the lives of our children, and their children. That's one heck of an error. It must be nice being worth so much that you have no idea how much. Kind of like not knowing how many homes you own.
