#What10kbuys at UW–Madison

You have heard, I imagine, about Romney offering to bet Perry $10,000 last night during the Republican debates, as TPM describes it:

without skipping a beat at the Saturday night debate here, Mitt Romney held out his hand and offered to bet Rick Perry $10,000 that he didn’t change the health care text in his book.

It's getting quick political play (again, for TPM, see here). The hashtag in the subject line of this post has taken off ... a guy who's worth an estimated $200,000,000* (here) can throw away 10k without blinking but for us real people, it's more than a casual bet.

In our world, the answer to #What10kbuys is quick and easy: it would pay the salary of an experienced Teaching Assistant or Project Assistant, working over 15 hours a week for the full academic year.

I'll bet you $10,000 this haunts Mittens for a while.**


* At a 5% return on investment that would be an annual income of 10 million a year without touching the principal.


** No, I won't actually bet you that. A dollar, maybe.