How can we bring statistics into the real world?

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I found it difficult to feel any sympathy for Heather Mills as she stood on the steps of the law court ranting about her divorce settlement of £25 million, when I read that many living in the UK are on the verge of bankruptcy.

This is a stupendous amount of money and most of us could live very handsomely on the interest on such a stack of cash. And there she is challenging whether Sir Paul is in fact worth £400 million or £800 million. I cannot imagine what having so much money would mean. The problem is that these days we are constantly exposed to telephone number amounts of money and equally excessive statistics that we almost become immune to the message they are trying to convey. For example in 2003 the UK Government spent £2.3 billion on job seekers allowance, just over £42 billion on pensions and £38 bi...

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