How innumerate are Americans, anyway?

I just saw a commercial peddling gold coins, going on and on about how the price of gold was soaring above $1300 per ounce, and showing this fancy glinting well-lit shiny gold coin and telling everyone the cost of gold meant the $50 price could only be guaranteed for 7 days. This coin is 14 karat 0.9999 pure gold clad! A little deeper in to the spiel, they mention that it contains 14 milligrams of pure gold.

Using their own numbers, by my calculation that means the $50 coin contains about 64¢ worth of gold.

It sounds like a tax on dumb people, to me. They're probably snaring people who watch Glenn Beck and read the Wall Street Journal.

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