Now that the NCAA Tournament is almost here, it's time for the yearly "How much America loses in worker productivity" completely randomly made up number study.

So, how much are we going to lose this year? The Chicago consulting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas' imaginary estimate of the Tournament's cost to U.S. businesses is $1.7 billion for this year. That's a staggering 42 percent increase over the 2007 estimate, which was $1.2 billion. The lesson? If you skip out on work to watch the Tourney, you're a terrorist.

But, um, how exactly can they tell that people will waste more time this year and be less productive when the Tournament isn't even going on yet? Good question.

Challenger Gray arrived at the number by multiplying the number of basketball fans by the average hourly wage, and also by making all kinds of crazy assumptions such as pretending that no worker in the United States ever wastes a single minute except at Tournament time.

Here were their estimates (in millions lost) for the past couple of years.

2004 $765.7
2005 $889.6
2006 $3,800
2007 $1,200
2008 $1,700

Keep in mind, these studies were done BEFORE the Tournament began each year, not after.

I always love this study because the key ingredient in determining it is that Challenger Gray & Christmas assumes all workers never take any breaks at all except during March Madness. A brilliant assumption, I know. I mean, the average worker in the US must actually work, what, like 20 minutes a week? They're either farting around at Starbucks or throwing pencils at the ceiling or sexually harassing other workers. They definitely aren't working all the time. And that's why no one ever takes this study seriously.

By the way, I'm also convinced they forgot about pro bloggers like me. I get to watch the Tournament and work at the same time. That'll put a huge dent in that estimate for sure, like $1 billion, easily.