If you've been following the financial crap

Mark Eatherton

$23,039.00 for each citizen of the United States.

What could I do with that money...

More importantly, what are the people who are going to GET the money going to do with it?

Troubling times, for sure...

ME

S Ebels_2

This just blows my mind SE

There is no way to even comprehend this much money. They are throwing around trillion $$ figures like it's no big deal.

Maybe some of you have seen this, it's from a financial website I read. It's just nuts.

"So what to make of it all? As we see it, the first few months of the 2009 will likely best be spent trying to be somewhat agnostic on the subject of “Deflation versus Inflation.” On the deflation side, the ledger right now is admittedly very powerful and in some way still quite compelling, especially if you look only at the outer manifestations of recession and call that ‘deflation.’ Yet in truth, as Milton Friedman said, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,” and to that end, money supply aggregates are still growing throughout the world, and within a few months a lot of the bailout money and stimulus program dollars will be working their way into the global economy. So far, ‘Velocity,’ which is a key ingredient to reversing the deflationary tide, has not given any evidence of arresting its decline and remains in a solid downtrend. This hints that it may be a number of months before any recovery could begin to take shape. Yet, on the future recovery, or ‘reflation’ side, it is hard to believe that all of this massive money creation will go for naught in terms of not doing any good, or having zero impact on arresting the downside contraction. I mean these numbers are staggering! Here in the US, the total of stimulus and bail out monies is already north of 7 trillion dollars in total commitments, with total spending already well beyond 3.50 trillion dollars. A while back, James Bianco of Bianco Research tried to put these figures in perspective by comparing the bail out costs in 2008/2009 to some of the bigger government expenditures of the last 200 years.

* Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
* Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
* Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
* S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
* Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
* The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
* Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
* Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
* NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

Totaling all of these past expenditures – combined and adjusting the values to today’s dollars yields a total of around $3.92 Trillion dollars. The point here is that (and recalling that Obama will soon be proposing a spending package of at least another $700 billion) by the time this is over, the US will easily have spent a sum in excess of $4 Trillion dollars in bail out/stimulus monies – a total that will likely exceed the combined prior total of past major expenditures. That is a mind-blowing outcome, and it speaks to how serious the events of the last 12 months are in context with past history."

Baltimore/Maine Doug_4

And this approach

of throwing money around is part of the problem. It is like the pallets of cash that disappeared in Iraq. The DC method of solving these problems is to throw cash at it and some of it may stick and some blow away in the wind. Crooks and speculators and bad management spent years creating something that we expect to quickly change by now handing more money to the same crooks and speculators and bad management. Ummm, maybe we will get the same results as before? What they don't point out is the effect of the debt that will last far longer than the momentary potential lift of all that cash flying around. You can bet that a good chunk of it is being "banked" off shore.

>>>>Date: January 13, 2009 08:11 PM
Author: S Ebels (s_ebels@yahoo/com)
Subject: This just blows my mind SE
There is no way to even comprehend this much money. They are throwing around trillion $$ figures like it's no big deal.<<<<

Steve Ebels_3

Trying to put this in perspective

given that a $1 bill is .004" thick......

There would be $3,000 in a 1' stack

There would be $15,840,000 in a stack 1 mile high

I might be losing track of some zero's here but a 1 trillion stack would by my humble math skills equate to a stack 63,131 miles high, nearly 1/4 of the way to the moon.

Another way to look at it is if I made $1,000,000 per DAY it would take me roughly 2,740 YEARS to make $1,000,000,000,000. Not counting interest of course

Absolutely mind numbing. There's no way this can ever work out to anything good.

I think the gubmint is going to have to buy new desktop adding machines to handle all the zeros. Mine won't do it.

Leo G_101

and already GM

is back asking for more! Sorry guys, but the bailout is just political expedency! we have to come up with adifferent type of economy, not based on never-ending consumerism. I don't know about you parents, but mine lived threw the last depression, cuz of that lesson, my father never borrowed a penny in his life! FACT! he saved until he had the money that was needed for the purchase.
Built his own house over 3 years while working full time @ 50 hours a week.

I know, it was a different world back then, but maybe we should be looking back to see how to go forward (oh no, I forgot, this is wrong thinking, just have to look at that steam thread to see that you never look back to see how to go forward! LOL!)

Leo G

Paul Fredricks_9

Let's start now.

I vote we give back Louisiana. That will help start to lower those numbers.