#i love the library

[netherworldpost]

The Cold Hearted Amateur Economist Studying the Annual Budget ($113.4 million proposed 2023) for the Chicago Public Library to state "This Is a Stupidly Great Deal."

I am not a professional economist.

To be clear, and to start with, I do not run economic data for real world scenarios for clients or governments or any institutions.

I do run fantasy economic models for fantasy worlds (elves, dwarves, dragons, etc.) for private clients (nerds with more cash than time).

But to be clear I am not a real world economist. So there will be variables I don't know/care about.

The Chicago (hi, I live in Chicago) public library proposed budget

for 2023 is

$113,400,000

(source)

Which is a lot of money, objectively speaking, when you look at it as an annual price tag of "I need $113,400,000. For, um, this year. Next year it'll be more."

In addition to being an amateur economist, as I call myself, because I deal exclusively in fantasy-world economics exclusively

I was a professional graphic designer for many years and have dealt with charts, graphs, information displays, etc.

for a really long time

From the above source, 24.3% (about $27,556,200) is provided by grants, leaving 75.7% (about $85,843,800) to raise.

Still a big chunk of cash.

Damn near $86 million bucks.

That would buy so many zines.

Is it worth it?! LET'S GO BACK TO "I WAS A FORMER GRAPHIC DESIGNER" and dealt with charts and things, a lot, to raise cash for weird projects, a lot.

$85,843,800 (above figure to raise) divided by 365 (sorry leap year, we're being un-generous) is $235,188.49 a day.

Nearly. A quarter. Million dollars. A day.

Wow.

But wait...

...there is more than one person living in Chicago.

Which means that it is NOT a daily bill to ONE person for $235,188.49. It is a daily bill for for 1/2,665,039 PEOPLE, given the city's population.

(source)

To be fair, not everyone pays taxes, for a variety of reasons.

Since I'm not a professional economist, let's be brutally unfair and guess only 1/3 of the city pays taxes. It's far more than that, but, yknow...

...amateur economist privilege.

2,665,039 x 0.33 = 879,462.87... we'll... just round... up... this isn't SAW.

FUN FACT, though! You can borrow SAW from the Chicago Public Library for $0.00!

Resuming the point!

Daily bill of $235,188.49 sent to a collective of 879,463 people whom paying taxes to fund the library using the above math.

(Folks astute in math are going to immediately get my end point that this is cheap)

$235,188.49 (daily budget) divided by 879,463 (people)

is...

$0.26742283643 or rounded up

$0.27 per day.

The Chicago Public Library costs less than $0.30 per day per tax payer to cover the entire city.

Less. Than $0.30. Per day. Per tax payer.

...wow.

You can do similar math by checking your local library's budget and comparing it to your local population and being as ungenerous, or more specific if you wish to get a closer-to-accurate number, when comparing tax payers.

If you want to say "1 out of every 3 people paying taxes is too high" (it's not, but let's just say it is for the sake of furthering my point of "the library is an intensely great deal) and instead... say...

1 out of every 5 people pay taxes

because you want to be a contrarian for whatever personal reasons

1/5 = 20%, 20% of 2,665,039 people is 533,008 (rounded up, per above SAW rules)

$235,188.49 (daily budget) divided by 533,008 (people in this ultra contrarian numbers formula) is $0.44124757977, or, $0.44 per day per tax payer.

Using 1/3 as a tax payer base is extremely low. It's easier math. I chose it to make a point.

Pushing it further to 1/5 as a tax payer base raises the daily cost by ($0.44-0.27) $0.17.

Use your local library. Your literal pocket change pays for it.

This is a "I love the library" post sponsored by the library research I am doing for a private client and work that'll be used for future Netherworld Post releases.

[imagine-all-the-people]

I was at the library yesterday and picked up a book about the rise in power of police.

This was the first page. 📖

[relativefict1on]

valentine posted by my local library

[queen-of-weird-girl-nation]

GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS LOOK AT WHAT I HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH

[ethereal-maia]

hey so. the other day I was at the library. Looking at the books. On the bottom shelf I spy a book because it is yellow and therefore it is eye catching.

It is called ONE MAN GUY.

I laugh to myself. That’s so funny! Man… guy… That’s like the same word. Used twice in a row! I love synonyms.

I stoop down to get the book and peer into the front cover.

It is a book about a man who dates men. Not about a guy who is just a man and a guy. Which would be iconic I fear.

[dapperenby13]

Hey, everyone. You got a library near you? Go there. It’s fun it’s cool it’s interesting. I promise you you’ll find something interesting there. Even if you don’t have a library card (which I highly suggest you get, it’s completely free) you can still look at the books in the library. You have homework to do or need to get some writing done, try the library. They usually if not always have somewhere to sit. Go to the library.

[nerves-nebula]

You ever go to a library and find so many good books you wanna shout in like a nonsensical verbal stim way but libraries are for QUIET so you kinda just shake and vibrate?

[ehgood-enough]

lol well I thought I finished all the Chris evans movies from the library but when I went to today to pick up my holds I had 5 more. The losers (seen not that long ago I clearly wasn’t paying attention to what I picked out) Scott pilgrim vs the world (always down for a good nostalgia movie) what’s your number (cheesy but good for background watching); puncture (I thought I watched this last week) and defending Jacob (now I really know I wasn’t paying attention when I placed my holds because this was a struggle to watch once - might be returned unseen)

There’s one librarian who is thrilled when I picked up my holds during movie watching months because there’s always a huge stack of stuff for me. I had 9 movies (well 8 and one miniseries) 2 art books and a normal book. I’ll need more movies before the week is up. Well I’ve got a bunch I want to watch on Tubi streaming so I won’t need more library movies until, hopefully, next week

[free-piza]

enough about taylor swift already. reblog and tag the smallest, least known artist you listen to

[paracosmoon]

[nonexistent-creature]

What do you mean why am I doing backbends in the stacks, do you not love my spirit of whimsy??? Fine. I guess I'll diagonalize some more operators or something.

[orangeofthegarden]

Libraries are so weird like you're just cool with me taking this home with me? Wdym you're just okay with me having this in my house, in my bags. I mean I'm not gonna steal it, but I could. How is this in any way a functioning system still??

[relativefict1on]

stayed at the library an hour longer than I meant to due to cute shelving girl

[queen-of-weird-girl-nation]

Just had a great study session :)

[blorbocantdomath]

going to the library today twirling my hair and kicking my feet

[mokeonn]

"But if college was free, then people would abuse that and get useless degrees" hell yeah I would! If I could go to college without debt I would make it my job to get a degree in every little thing that interested me. I'd get a doctorate in film studies. I'd have a bachelor's degree for every science I like. I'd try to learn at least 5 languages with varying results. I would learn something "useful" like coding and then follow it up with a ""useless"" degree like art history. I'd be the world record speed run holder for getting every degree possible.

But I can't afford college without going into massive debt, so instead I spent the last 5 years trying to figure out what I am passionate enough about to consider going into debt over, because unfortunately being passionate about everything is extremely expensive to pursue.