I received an email from a business associated that had some of these neat little tidbits below… All it said is that it was from an advertising firm.   If you happen to know or have a link to the original source please let me know.

Since our current economic condition here in the USA has us all thinking in terms of Billions I thought it might be interesting to put that term into perspective.  The number is almost an incomprehensible number and while it just seems to roll off of people’s tongues what does it really mean?

A billion seconds ago – It was in 1959.

A billion minutes ago – Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago – our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion days ago – no one walked on the earth with two feet.

A billion dollars ago – about 8 hours and 20 minutes at the rate our government spends it.

Let’s look at Katrina and New Orleans and their request for 250 Billion Dollars to rebuild…

If you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans that means every man woman and child in the city would get $516,528.

Each of the 188,251 homes would get $1,329,787.

If you are a family of four you would get $2,066,012.

So what about the $700 Billion for the bank bailout?

That is enough money to fund complete medical care for every man woman and child alive in the US for 11 years!

Needless to say at $6.93 I have to take a loan against future payouts in order to be able to do anything.  Our dinner at the local Mexican restaurant was more that 5 times that amount (with tip of course), the movie tickets were $9.25 each and the popcorn and soda pop to go with them cost more than many 3rd world families have to spend in an entire month.

I figure at this rate I am going to need to have between 9 and 10 more paychecks to cover the evening out.  I got a little caught up in the moment of having that money to spend which encouraged me to do just as our government is doing… deficit spending!!!   Fortunate for me personally, I only need 10 more paychecks to cover my little splurge…

Put into perspective… our 700 BILLION dollar stimulus package divided by approximately 350 MILLION Americans is about 2000 dollars for each man woman and child in this country. (Tax payer or not.)  If I gave the government back their $6.93 per paycheck I would need about 289 paychecks to cover my $2000 of their stimulus spending.  (That’s 11 years for me!) An you know what that doesn’t include any interest.  The money doesn’t grow on trees.  It has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is typically going to get an interest payment as well.