Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Suppose You Had $3.8 trillion? Would You Give Me Some?

Three point eight trillion dollars. Just think about that for a minute. I'm a former math teacher and about the only time I used to use numbers like that was when I was trying to show kids how astronomers & other scientists use math, i.e. light-years, scientific notation, etc. But in terms of money, to me it means practically nothing. For example look at the list of items on the right that I Photoshopped together. They're a Gulf Stream IV jet plane, your own private island in the Bahamas, a Rolls Royce Phantom, a luxury yacht and finally an estate in upscale Palm Beach, FL. All of those things together are a cool $77 million plus. A lot of money, isn't it? Yet with $3.8 trillion you could buy all of those things for-get this-almost 50,000 people. That's almost as many friends as I have on Facebook!! In terms of the whole nation, let's say there are about 300 million people in the country. That includes illegals too. If we were to be assessed enough money per person to cover the Federal budget, it would cost every single man, woman and child slightly over $12,000. I could go on and on but you get the idea. I don't care if you're republican, democrat, libertarian, communist, fascist, anarchist or a druid-what ever you are, it's a LOT of money. I wonder where it's all going. I'm not getting my hopes up that it's going to find it's way to where it's needed most. I know I'll be benefiting from some of it because I'm on Medicare but don't blame me & other retired folks for ALL of it. I thought the massive economic stimulus package passed early in Obama's presidency was going to result in valuable 'shovel ready' projects going on all over fixing our bridges, highways, tunnels, and other crumbling infrastructure. What happened? Nothing-at least not here in Connecticut. The roads in my town still stink. I've been trying for over 20 years to get the town to fix my road. Nothing. I don't get it. Help me out here. I guess I'll have to do some research and get a copy of the budget to see. I'll let you know what it says after I've read it. Let's see, in a couple of weeks I'll be 67 so you should be hearing from me on about my 90th birthday!

No comments: