BEACHCOMBER

107 YEARS OLD AND STILL A FINE TRUMPETER...

I THINK you will agree $354.9million is a good deal of money, but ever since a New York court fined Donald Trump that amount for financial irregularities, I have wondered how the judge arrived at that figure.

My initial thought was that the number is close to the current American population. Was it possible, I wondered, that he was fined one dollar for every American? On closer inspection, though, I discovered that the US population is only 341.8 million, so the fine is equal to one dollar and four cents per American, but why the extra four cents?

My next thought was that it may be related to the Earth’s population of 8.09 billion, as Mr Trump is a problem for the whole world. The fine then works out at 4.4 cents for everyone now living, which would pose a problem as fractions of a cent are difficult to deal with.

If we round it down to four cents per person, however, that might account for the surplus four cents per American of our previous calculation.

If that were the case, though, the court would have to justify charging Mr Trump one dollar for every American, plus a further four cents for every American’s share of the total if it is spread across the entire world. That looks suspiciously like double bookkeeping. However, this is an Olympic year, and an Olympic swimming pool must be 50 metres long, 25 metres wide and at least two metres deep. It therefore contains at least 2,500 litres of water which weighs 2,500 kilograms. Trump’s fine of $354.9m is equal to £280.4m and if that were paid in pound coins, which weigh 8.75 grams each, the total weight of the fine would be 2,453 million grams, which is 2,453kgs – which is a little less than the 2,500kgs of water in an Olympic pool.

Can they really be asking the former president to fill a swimming pool with an equivalent weight of pound coins?

There is, however, one item that explains Trump’s fine perfectly. The current basic annual salary of a Member of Parliament is £86,584. There are 650 MPs, so the salary for all of them comes to £56.28m. The life of a parliament is five years, so over that period, the salaries will cost us £281.4m which, give or take a tiny currency fluctuation, is exactly equal to Trump’s fine.

At last, it all makes sense: fine Trump and pay for British politics.