How Much Is 700 Billion Really?

I wanted to understand the "bailout package" that congress just approved.

So in order to try to understand this, I did what I always do when I want to know about something, and used Google. I did a Google news search, and Googled the term "breakdown of 700 billion dollars".

Here's the result.
Did you mean 700 Million, not 700 billion? Because there is no way could it be 700 billion.
Did you mean "breakdown of 700 Million?" (Not 700 Billion)?

If there are 200 million working Americans today (which there aren't, but it's a nice round number), and 700 billion dollars is being spent, how much does that equate to per person?

Then I realized that knowing that number doesn't really mean anything anyway, because all that's going to happen is that more money is going to be printed.

But, I think that it's good to know just how much money is going to be printed (made up) on a per person basis.

That's a whole lot of zeroes, but if I'm not mistaken, it's $3,500/person.

Carrie said that she had heard someone commenting on how much money 700 billion really is, and how the bailout will be spent. She didn't remember all the specifics of the comment, and even if she had, 700 billion is not a number I can really grasp anyway.

Apparently, Google is also having a difficult time with the incomprehensible amount of money 700 billion represents.

Posted by Jonathan on October 19, 2008 02:16 PM | How Much Is 700 Billion Really?

Comments

Lisa Commented:

That's funny!!

Posted by: Lisa | October 20, 2008 10:56 PM

Paul Sterling Commented:

Thanks Jonathon,

odd minds think alike because i did the same thing... the free enterprise is no longer very free, although some of them are very enterprising - company CEO getting between $10 - $100 million dollars...

WOW, now that is failing in style. while the workers are getting - what are they getting anyway?

I think if they had given every man, women and child in the USA $3,500. that would stimulated things.

keep it real.

Paul
http://www.yoursitereportcard.com

Posted by: Paul Sterling | October 20, 2008 11:00 PM

Jim McLane Commented:

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about serious money!

Posted by: Jim McLane | October 21, 2008 08:42 AM

Greg Commented:

Hmmm, we were talking about this over dinner tonight. The discussion was about the fact that there are around 350,000,000 people in the US. That's about 100,000,000 families at 3.5 people per family.

The discusion then centered around which would do the country more good, giving the banks and savings and loans 700,000,000,000 to waste (Can you see which side we're on?) Or giving each American family $7,000.00 of their hard earned tax dollars back to spend as they see fit.

I know which one would get the economy working better.... Do You?

Greg

Posted by: Greg | December 15, 2008 11:54 PM