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If I Had a Billion Dollars….

- September 16, 2010

CNN Is reporting that “over $1 billion”:http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/16/midterm-tv-ad-spending-could-top-1-billion/ may be spent on campaign advertising in the US midterm election cycle, a fact that I am guessing is supposed to horrify us. Just to put this number in perspective, though, it is worth noting that Americans spend “$40 billion a year on weight-loss products”:http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2008/01/the_diet_indust.html. So apparently we are collectively still a bit more interested in losing those extra pounds than losing those extra Senators…

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[Hat tip to someone, somewhere, who once compared campaign spending to spending on chewing gum, which is where I”m sure I got the idea for this post from. For what it’s worth, according to “WikiAnswers”:http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_money_do_Americans_spend_on_gum_per_year, Americans spend about $500 million per year on chewing gum. Although, also interestingly, if you go “Google Answers”:http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=93965 for this question, and click on the first link they have to data on American Chewing gum spending, you get taken to an anti-abortion website.]