I, like many other people in America, am in a kind of daze about all this money being redirected towards 'bailing out' America.
To me, $1,000 is a lot of money. However, when they start talking about hundreds of billions, we leave the territory of the tangible and enter the realm of the ridiculous. What is a billion dollars to the likes of me? Monopoly money (unfortunately, that's closer to the truth than I'd like.)
CK linked to a graphic illustration of how much a trillion dollars ACTUALLY is. It's very thought provoking. It makes me slightly more alarmed about the fact that America's soon going to be $11 trillion dollars in debt. That's just...
It's just silly money. No wonder nobody can take it seriously. The whole country's shell-shocked and when people are thinking in billions, what's one or two more either way? It's not our money (although it actually is.)
We start off with a single $100 bill - a 'Benjamin' as they're commonly known.
One hundred, hundred-dollar bills makes a stack about half an inch thick and is worth about $10,000. That's serious walkin' around money as far as I'm concerned.
One hundred stacks of $10,000 would equal a million dollars - which would (as you'll know from Hollywood) fit neatly into a briefcase. Consider; that small pile of cash is enough to buy a luxury house, or live off comfortably for a decade.
$100 million dollars is a serious chunk o' change. You'd need a fork-lift to cart this about.
...and a billion dollars looks like something like this. Remember, Obama's bailout bill was in excess of 700 billion dollars. That's nearly a trillion dollars.
...which looks something like this, if you're wondering.
That's how much (at a minimum) we're currently spending to bail America out of it's self-inflicted bankruptcy. That's a thousand, thousand million dollars.
If we had to pay America's bills in cash, perhaps it would make us all think a little more about what we're doing (or, at least, give union fork-lift drivers a serious boost!)
1 comment:
With the economic stimulus package estimated to cost around one trillion dollars, there have been numerous (and some humorous) ways to put that number in perspective. Here’s one that I particularly liked.
First - the math:
* 1 (one)
* 10 (ten)
* 100 (one hundred)
* 1,000 (one thousand)
* 10,000 (ten thousand)
* 100,000 (hundred thousand)
* 1,000,000 (one million)
* 10,000,000 (ten million)
* 100,000,000 (hundred million)
* 1,000,000,000 (one billion)
* 10,000,000,000 (ten billion)
* 100,000,000,000 (hundred billion)
* 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion)
Now the analogy:
* If someone spent one million dollars per day each and every day since Jesus was born, it would take another 731 years (beyond today) before one trillion dollars was spent.
* $1,000,000,000,000 / $1,000,000 per day = one million days
* one million days / 365 = 2740 years
* 2740 - 2009 = 731 (years remaining)
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