The people paid $30 originally, with the $5 taken from the till that makes
the actual cost $25. The people paid $27 less the $2 the clerk took, it
becomes $25.


"Calif Bill" wrote in message
nk.net...
The tax man clerk. They actually paid $30 with a $5 rebate for the
rope/line/twine. Then the Federal government trained clerk took the
rebate
and charged a 40% handling charge to administer the rebate. About like
the
rest of the Federal Government on giving back the taxes they extracted
from
the states, to give back to the states. But if the clerk was really
government material, he would have added some extra requirements to the
60%
of the rebate he let the payers have.
Bill

"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
The acutal solution:

The rec.boats posters went into Big Box Marine.

Calif Bill bought ten feet of anchor line
Gould bought ten feet of rope to use for an anchor rode
Jax bought ten feet of rope to use for an anchor rope.

The young clerk on duty got rather confused by it all, and forgot what
the
cordage was supposed to sell for.
The clerk charged all three rec.boats posters $10 @.

Before the posters could relocate their argument to the parking lot, the
manager of Big Box Marine asked the clerk about the sale. The clerk
said,
"I
didn't know what to charge, so they each paid $10."

"That's too much said the manager of Big Box Marine, " {{OK OKIt's a
fable
already so give me a break}} "Take $5 out of the till and give it back
to
them."

The clerk didn't know how to divide $5 by three, so he took a $2 "tip"
and
gave
eachof the rec.boaters a $1 refund. Since the cordage originally cost
each
poster $10 and they received $1 back, the net cost per poster could be
said to
be $9.

Since 9X3 = 27, and the clerk absoconded with $2....what happened to the
extra
buck? ($27 + 2 = $29)

Who will be the first "unstumped" by this one? :-)

The people paid $30 originally, with the $5 taken from the till that makes
the actual cost $25. The people paid $27 less the $2 the clerk took, it
becomes $25.

Very close. In fact, you may have it figured out and I'm not quite bright
enough to follow your explanation. The problem confounds some people who are
led into doing a certain type of math.

The $9 apiece is really a red herring. Like good propaganda, it uses someting
that appears logical to support something that is not true.

$30 aggregate from the buyers. At this point the cost of the goods was $30.
That
changed to $25, momentarily, when the manager instructed the clerk to refund $5
fom the till. The cost went back up to $27 when the clerk "reduced the refund"
by two bucks. Add the dollar apiece given to
the three posters to $27, and all $30 is accounted for.

But 3 x $9 is still $27, and the clerk took $2.

Amazing what you can do with a carefully selected portion of the truth and a
deliberately calculated presentation.