That's the big obvious one - one one-hundredth of one percent annualized, over 30 years, doesn't even get you to a penny growth. I'm sure someone will pipe up with the exact figure, if they already haven't.
When estimating compound interest, it never hurts to ballpark your facts against the rule of 72 - when x percent growth (or interest) times y years = 72, then you've roughly doubled your money. since 30 times 0.01 is 0.30, so we're nowhere close to that.
My first year calculus classes are nearly a decade away, but our prof used to insist that we be able to ballpark our answers on the number line; it kept us from making egregious and unforgivable arithmetical errors like the above. It didn't keep most of us from being utterly inept, but that's another story entirely.
Marco
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> Marco Anglesio | Optimism is the content <
> mpa at the-wire.com | of small men in high places. <
> http://www.the-wire.com/~mpa | --F. Scott Fitzgerald <
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