700 B-I-L-L-I-O-N Dollars

October 21, 2008 by Nepharia 

Technophiles on the Loose

It sounds like the punch line from an Austin Power’s movie.

Do we really even know how much that is? I lifted the following from Snopes.com to help you put ONE BILLION into perspective:


  • A billion seconds is about 31.7 years


  • A billion minutes is approximately 1901 years.


  • A billion hours represents a bit over 114,000 years.


  • A billion days ago is about 2.74 million years.


  • A billion dollars ago: If the U.S. federal government were spending a billion dollars every 8 hours and 20 minutes, its total yearly expenditure would be a little more than $1 trillion. In the last few years, the budgets approved by Congress have been about double that amount, or $2 trillion per year.

So how much does the federal government get to spend every year? Approximately $2.4 trillion, give or take a billion.

You may be thinking that we seem to have enough for the $700 Billion bailout. However, consider this: before the bailout, the government expected to spend $2.8 trillion dollars, which is $400 billion more than it had to spend to begin with.

And just where does it get that money to overspend? That same place your or I would get it: they borrow it. This year, they will have to borrow over $1 trillion (existing $400 billion deficit, plus the $700 billion just added with this new bailout bill).

Please bear in mind that as of last year, our government had to allot 10% of their income just to cover interest on the existing deficit — this money is owed to real entities in the world.

Does this sound like a responsible government to you?

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