$700 Billion: What it Could Pay For
So, I was trying to get a vision for how much money $700 billion dollars really is, especially since “billion” sounds so much like “million” that I’m failing to grasp the geometry of the difference. I did some minor research and came up with these estimates. Each of these is a separate estimate for the $700,000,000,000:
- $3,000 per person in the US. Family of four worth $12,000. Family of ten worth $30,000. (current US pop: 305 million)
- $104 per person across the planet. EVERYONE ON THE PLANET!!! (current population: 6.7 billion)
- $10,000 per single-family-detached house in US. (Estimated number of houses is 70 million.)
- $8,860 per adult currently estimated to be struggling with health care debt (current estimate 79 million).
- $19,178 per person currently living below the poverty line. $76,712 per family of four. (36.5 million for 2006 estimate.)
- $800 million to 875 research facilities to pay for R&D on developing new antibiotics.
- $2,187,500 per person currently employed as a securities, commodities, or financial services sales agent in the US (320,000 as of 2006).
oh my.
“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”
Oh. My.
Or it could pay for roughly 16 months of US military spending.
I think I might be ill.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Paying for the Healthcare Bill
- The Stimulus Package: The Devil’s In the Details
- A Crisis Without Criminals
September 26, 2008 | Filed Under Great Recession
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