With all the politicking that went on in Washington over the seven hundred billion dollar bail out deal, everybody’s heads are still spinning. Most people in the world don’t have a realistic clue as to what this amount even looks like. When an astronomer helps us to comprehend immense sizes in the universe he will use metaphorical props of sorts. Well let’s consider the following purchasing power facts. This will give us a better perspective of the term - seven hundred billion dollars.
What Seven Hundred Billion Dollars will buy:
- Twenty (20) Nimitz class, nuclear aircraft carriers, each equipped with100 of the latest super-sonic jets and payloads. - $160,000,000,000
- A state of the art sports stadium for every MLB and NFL team in the U.S. - $120,000,000,000
- A brand new 3000 mile interstate highway stretching from New York to Los Angeles, all bridges and tunnels included, with a rest stop every thirty miles both ways. - $25,000,000,000
- Seven (7) distinct World Trade Center Tower Complexes located in seven different cities, each with at least two skyscrapers over 110 stories high. - $35,000,000,000
- The establishment of a U.S. lunar exploration facility on the surface of the moon. - $60,000,000,000
- One thousand U.S. dollars ($1000) for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. - $300,000,000,000
Total for all the above - $700,000,000,000
Is it any wonder why Americans are not happy about this deal. “But we needed to pass this measure for the good of the country...” We know that something needed to be done, Mr. President, Senator, congressman. We sort of understand. “But” we merely insist on two things: We do not want you to come back a few years from now and then tell us that another $700,000,000,000 is needed in order to finish fixing a problem that the majority of us in the U.S. and other nations of the earth did not cause in the first place! And we want you, our representatives, to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
How about listening to our solutions for once. Here’s just one of many you might have considered:
We’ll forego the aircraft carriers, the sports complexes, the interstate highway from N.Y. to LA., and the World Trade Center Towers. Use that $340,000,000,000 to fix the problem on Wall Street. Take the $60,000,000,000 for the moon facility and use it to find, and extract, the one trillion barrels of oil and natural gas reserves hidden under U.S. soil. Bid the drilling rights out to major oil companies with the caveat that all bids must entail reasonable gas prices at the pump (well under $3.00 per gallon). Use the extra revenues from these ratio bids for health care, infrastructure repair, etc.. And send us the $1000 dollars. We are quite capable of spending the money and stimulating the economy on main street.
No one up there listens to us though. I guess we must find that last Who in Whoville and encourage him to give his best yop.
