Teaching maths over the years

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Teaching maths in 1970
A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching maths in 1980
A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is 80% of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching maths in 1990
A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is £80. How much was his profit?

Teaching maths in 2000
A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is £80 and his profit is £20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching maths in 2005
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. Your assignment: Discuss how the birds and squirrels might feel as the logger cut down their homes just for a measly profit of £20.

Teaching maths in 2009
A logger is arrested for trying to cut down a tree, because it might be offensive to Muslims or other religious groups not consulted in the felling licence. He is fined £100 because his chainsaw is in breach of health and safety legislation: it is deemed too dangerous because it might cut something.

He has used the chainsaw for over 20 years without incident but he does not have the correct certificate of competence and is considered to be a recidivist and habitual criminal. His DNA is sampled and his details circulated to government agencies. He protests and is taken to court and fined another £100. When he is released he returns to find gypsies have cut down half his wood to build a camp on his land.

He tries to throw them off but is arrested, prosecuted for harassing an ethnic minority, imprisoned and fined a further £100. While he is in jail the gypsies cut down the rest of his wood and sell it on the black market for £100 cash. They also have a leaving barbecue of squirrel and pheasant and depart leaving behind pile of rubbish and asbestos sheeting.

The forester on release is warned that failure to clear the rubbish immediately at his own cost is an offence. He complains and is arrested for environmental pollution, breach of the peace and invoiced £12,000 plus VAT for safe disposal costs by a regulated government contractor.

Your assignment: How many times is the logger going to have to be arrested and fined before he realises that he is never going to make £20 profit by hard work, give up, go on the dole and live off the state for the rest of his life?

Teaching maths in 2010
A logger doesn’t sell a lorry load of timber because he can’t get a loan to buy a new lorry because his bank has spent all his and their money on a derivative of securitised debt related to sub-prime mortgages in Alabama and has lost the lot with only some government money left to pay a few million-pound bonuses to their senior directors and the traders who made the biggest losses.

The logger struggles to pay the £1,200 road tax on his old lorry which was built in the 1970s and no longer meets the emissions regulations. He is forced to scrap it.

Some Bulgarian loggers buy the lorry from the scrap merchant and put it back on the road. They undercut everyone on price for haulage and send their cash back home, while claiming unemployment for themselves and their relatives. If questioned they speak no English and it is easier to deport them at the government’s expense.

Following their holiday back home they return to the UK with different names and fresh girls and start again. The logger protests, is accused of being a bigoted racist and as his name is on the side of his old lorry he is forced to pay £1,500 registration fees as a gang-master.

The government borrows more money to pay more to the bankers as bonuses are not cheap. Members of parliament feel they are missing out and claim the difference on expenses and allowances. You do the maths.