Economic Bailout - Just How Much is a Billion Anyway?

When I was young I heard there were small handfuls of millionaires in the world. As far as I knew they all lived in Texas. I couldn’t fathom a “million” dollars back then. As I got older I heard of a few billionaires, I always figured they were kings or sultans.

Now, scared and strapped Americans are hearing talk about billions upon billions. Our government recently approved a plan, signed into law that will spend $787 billion. The newscasters and folks on Wall Street say it’s a lot of money. So just how much money is that anyway?

Most simpletons like me may have a hard time figuring out “just what is a billion?” Well, let’s try to put this in perspective.

First, go find a whole bunch of one-hundred dollar bills. Start by placing them end to end, you can use tape if you need, but keep doing it over and over until you reach the amount of the stimulus package, let’s say about $787 billion – but you can round up or down. When you’re done, you’ll find the row of hundreds is 745,000 miles long. It’s a distance to the moon, back to earth and back to the moon. It would take a jet flying at 450 mph over sixty-nine days to cover the distance.

One billion seconds ago was the year 1978. Jimmy Carter was president and Queen’s hit “We are the Champions” was number one on the billboard charts, “Garfield” made its comic debut and Roman Polanski made his getaway to Europe.

A billion teaspoons of water will fill two Olympic size pools, four and one-half Nimitz class aircraft carriers weigh one billion pounds, six states the size of Texas equal a billion acres, and, a baby born today will be nearly 32 years old in a billion seconds.

Wow, that really sounds like a lot of money! Now I’m really depressed.

Pass this on to your friends!

Julie Anne