Late night maths

Here’s a sample of the rubbish that occupies my brain at 2:30am, unable to sleep. First some background, in March 2006 I was walking with two friends when a madman jumped out of his car and tried to stab us all. He got one friend in the kidney, the other in his huge, overflowing heart, killing him, and me in the arm, severing three nerves and an artery.
Some amazing surgery managed to reattach all that, but then the nerves have had to grow back, leaving my right arm at first without movement or feeling, and now, coming up to a year later, with pretty coarse movement and feeling (though a lot better than nothing), and a sensation of pins and needles with every touch on my hand. At night though my hand often aches, and that was why I was awake. Normally I take two Panamax before bed, but that night I had decided I didn’t need to, managed to get to sleep, and then woken up because my hand was aching.
“Shit,” I thought. “I’m going to have to take these for the rest of my life.”
Now, the Victorian Government had very kindly already paid me some compensation (a bit under ten grand since I know you’re curious), but I can reapply to have that compensation changed in future, should I say, need expensive treatment that wasn’t at first evident when I made my initial claim. Lying in bed I calculated the following:
-100 Panamax at $6.00
- 6 cents per tablet, 2 tablets per night, 12 cents per day.
- $43.83 per year.
- I live for 50 more years
- $2191.15 to keep me in Panamax from now till death.

But, inflation is 3.3%! So, when I die in 2057, not only will my box of 100 Panamax now be costing me $31, I will have spent a total of $5584.22. Shit.

But, the interest rate for investments is higher than the rate of inflation! So, by awarding me a modest sum now, by investing it at, say a cautious 5%, (all this assumes we’ll still be getting 5% on our investments and inflation is 3.3% in 2057 – highly unlikely if we’re out of oil and we’re still talking about ratifying Kyoto – if that’s the case I suppose I’ll be scrounging my Panamax in some sort of urban wasteland), my future Panamax needs can be catered for by a pretty small outlay.
Just how modest a sum? $487. Shit.

Then again, I would have to invest that and then never touch it for that to work. In reality I would be withdrawing the cost of the Panamax each year. That being the case an initial investment of $1486 would do it.

Pretty bored, or pretty anal? Or perhaps Scottish?