Friday, October 03, 2008

The Bailout - How much is $700B???

I was reading about the bailout being passed and got to thinking... just how big is $700B? So, to try and grasp how big it is, I had to write it out:

$700,000,000,000.00

That didn't do it for me. I can't imagine a number that big. I had to break it down further. So, I got to thinking how I could do that. I was looking at that number and thought, "Have I even lived that many seconds?" The answer is, "no."

This was how I made that huge number understandable:

28.66 <- Years I've been alive
10,460.9 <- Days I've been alive
152,061.6 <- Hours I've been alive
15,063,696 <- Minutes I've been alive
903,821,760 <- Seconds I've been alive

0.9B seconds... that means to get up to $700B, it would be like handing out $774.49 every SECOND I've been alive.

Pardon me while I faint from shock.

Yes, I checked my math. Do the same math, and for every second McCain has been alive it's only $307 ;)

Ok... just had to share that visualization of $700B with you all.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

But $307 could have bought you a car... carriage back then!

(Sorry, I had to...)

psychobob said...

Actually, the version passed by the Congress today is $850 billion. They couldn't resist loading it with pork.
That's more like $940.45 for every second.
Or, try this on. That's $2822.65 from every man, woman, and child in America.
>:-(

simplykersh said...

going with bob's math...that is half my yearly salary to pay my families share. all so that people won't feel the result of their silly investing.

On a side note, I didn't know you were a comics fan. (I don't know about you but Alan Moore's V for Vendetta and Watchmen seem appropriate right now.) How long have you been reading? I got in during the early 90's (yeah Superman's death caught me)