The cost of the bailout
I keep hearing that the ultimate cost of this latest bailout of our financial institutions may end up being a trillion dollars. Everyone knows that is a lot of money but I don't think people really have a good concept of how much money it is. So what does a trillion dollars look like?
Put one way it looks like this: $1,000,000,000,000.00
Thats kind of a lot of zeros but hard to comprehend. On the other hand everyone can comprehend a hundred dollars, $100.00, so let's convert that trillion dollars into one hundred dollar bills. That would take 10,000,000,000 (ten billion) one hundred dollar bills to equal one trillion dollars.
That helps to understand it a little but I still don't think people have a concept so lets stack all those one hundred dollar bills up into a perfect stack, laying one bill on top of another and see how high it is.
WIth a little googling, I found that the specification for the thickness of American currency is 0.0043 inches thick. OK, so let's do some math, and please check my numbers!
How tall is a stack of ten billion one hundred dollar bills?
10,000,000,000 x 0.0043 inches = 43,000,000 inches
Let's convert that to feet:
43,000,000 inches / 12 inches = 3,583,333.33 feet
Let's convert that to miles:
3,583,333.33 feet / 5280 ft/mile = 678.66 miles
Wow! 678 miles reaches into space! And driving at 60 miles an hour along this perfect stack of one hundred dollar bills would take you 11.3 hours just to drive the length of this stack of one hundred dollar bills. Hell, wouldn't you love to have just a couple of inches off that stack? I mean, who would miss it?
Let's see how much 2 inches of one hundred dollar bills would be:
2 inches / 0.0043 inches/bill = 465.1 bills
465 one hundred dollar bills would ony be a mere $46,500.00
Hell, that's just lunch money for the people walking away with the taxpayer suppllied trillion dollar bailout. And they are walking away with it. They gambled, we cover their losses, and they keep the loot. Talk about a redistribution of wealth, I'm sure a lot of billionaires are going to be a hell of lot richer after this bailout is over and a bunch of new ones will be made. Free money from the taxpayers so eager to hand over their hard earned dollars.
What I want to know is why Americans keep voting for the people who do this to us? Talk about stupid.
Oh, and by the way, doesn't privatizing social security sound like a great idea now? Wouldn't you love to have had your social security account privatized in Merril Lynch or Bear Stearns? I know their CEO's would!
Stumble It!
posted by Friend of TPC @ 12:24 PM
3 Comments:
Not only do I love the way you speak with passion on the issues that affect us all, but you put your scientific training to good use too. Very snarky. Very good. Many thanks!
I was just thinking of ranting my socks off over the proposed privatization of SocSec, but I see you've done it for me.
(Kisses the girl passionately) You rock! (Just in case you didn't already know it.)
That is an awesome rant! Put that way it does seem incredible. I wonder if they'd bail out my student loan?
Hi TPC! And thanks! I called my Congress critter this morning and repeated my opposition to this bail out. I couldn't get through to our senators though. Sounds like they must be getting an earful as their lines are busy and their boxes are full. I may be reduced to sending an email. But please, rant away on SocSec privatization. You always write the best stuff!
And thank you cravensworld! As far as I am concerned, college education should be free for those who want it. Other countries have free college education. And we can't? It's insane.
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