Don't ask me how I stumbled onto this one (who says I spend too much time on the web?), but anyway back in 1990 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (of all things) Douglas Waugh proposed the use of the bicycle as an easy-to-understand economic unit, a concept he was introduced to by a boyhood friend:
Frank was a wise boy. Bicycles are tangible objects. Their value, in terms of the number of hours that must be worked to buy one, is probably immune to inflation. In other words, so long as you think in terms of a simple, basic bike, one without the bells, whistles, gears and silly spandex suits people now wear, it is a much more reliable and constant measure of worth than those dollars of ours that change in value as we look at them.
He estimated that such a basic bicycle cost 50 in 1990, and therefore Canada's national deficit (0 billion at the time) was roughly equivalent to 200 million bicycles:
That's eight for every Canadian and one hell of a pile of bikes, but at least I can comprehend the number. And that is more than I can say about our 0 billion deficit.
Umm, you can make of that what you will…
Comments
I have started using a bicycle to commute to work. It has not only saved me some dollars but has also been making me feel healthy.
I purchased a giant mountain bike a couple of days ago. I picked my bike from the Bike Shop Castle Hill in Sydney and found they were really helpful and knew their stuff. If anyone is interested their website is http://www.bikeshopcastlehill.com.au They seem to have all makes of bikes so maybe worth checking out.