Truly numbing amounts of money
January 29th, 2009 | by mbhunter |No Credit Needed had to work to wrap his head around exactly how much $887 billion is. That’s the Senate’s version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009. NCN found a good answer: almost $3,000 for every American man, woman, and child.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m trained to think about big numbers as a scientist. I’m more the exception than the rule, though. I doubt most people would think anything beyond “Gee, that’s a whole lot of money.” If they can get as far as knowing that they and everyone they know are on the hook for $3,000, then at least they can compare it to their paycheck.
Still, though, we won’t think much of it at the time because we don’t feel it as it’s being spent on our behalf. We feel it incrementally, incessantly, for years to come, and by the time we get jarred at how poor our standard of living has become, we’ll have forgotten the cause, if we ever knew what it was in the first place.
For the past year we’ve heard of reported corporate losses in the range of tens of billions of dollars. In the latter half of last year, and now this year, we hear of bailouts and stimuli in the hundreds of billions of dollars. (And high in that range.) A few weeks ago when I was working out at the YMCA I saw a news show that included in one of its graphics a price tag for the proposed economic stimulus that looked a bit like this:
Is it any wonder that we’re numb to how much is being spent when we see graphics for athousand billion dollars that make that amount look like there’s a sale at Penney’s? WIth this spending our federal debt will blow through $11 trillion — $11,000,000,000,000 — like it wasn’t even there.
Like I said before, we won’t feel it now. We might even be a little glad about people taking action. But we won’t miss the consequences of dismissing, intentionally or otherwise, how deep and dark a hole we’re digging for ourselves. Keep doing what you can to create your own change.
8 Responses to “Truly numbing amounts of money”
By ChristianPF on Jan 30, 2009 | Reply
MBH,
good post – I completely agree. I think the biggest problem with washington is that very few care about the LONG-TERM consequences of their actions. Most just seem to be doing what they think will make people feel good in the short term. It is just like parenting, if parents don’t ever tell their kids no, trying to be their friends they are doing LONG-TERM damage. But if they accept the temporary pain of their kids being unhappy, they will benefit their kids in the longterm…
By Funny about Money on Feb 1, 2009 | Reply
Here’s the plan: We cash out the funds into dollar bills and lay them end-to-end, building a road from here to Alpha Centauri. Then we have all the bankers and political fools who got us into this mess walk there and build a colony. By the time they get there, the bridge will have blown away in the solar winds, and we’ll be rid of them permanently.
Seriously: If we’re going to give that much money away (to people who award themselves gigantic bonuses and private jets), wouldn’t it have worked better to simply give $1 million to every household in the nation? A string could have been put on it: You have to pay off your debt (including mortgage) with it. Then whatever was left would be yours to spend. Everyone’s problems would have been solved: bad debt would go away; almost ALL debt would go away; people who behaved responsibly would get in on the handout as well as those who behaved like idiots and crooks; and most people would be left with plenty of money to diddle away on new Stuff.
By Ryan with Bad Credit on Feb 2, 2009 | Reply
The $3,000 for every man woman and child is a much more reflective number for the common people to understand. Now that isn’t much of the problem, the problem is how the government is going about to obtain this money, namely to issue US treasury bonds which are bought up by foreign countries. Can you imagine if the foreign countries decide not to buy them anymore?
By rocketc on Feb 2, 2009 | Reply
Good post, I’ve been hitting this hard for a month or so on facebook and lately on my blog. This bill is not about stimulus, but rather it is about increasing government control.
Interesting phenomenon, though, every liberal with whom I interact is starting to preface their comments with “I’m not a big fan of this stimulus, but . . .”
I think this thing is going to go down, but it will probably be replaced by something worse.
By Lord on Feb 2, 2009 | Reply
For comparison, Bush’s stimulus package was $2T and the results weren’t particularly efficacious. They could double it and write everyone a check though.
By rocketc on Feb 3, 2009 | Reply
umm . . . not sure where you are getting your info, Lord, but the Bush stimulus was closer to $150 b.
By Lord on Feb 3, 2009 | Reply
Bush’s extended over ten years and is still growing in real terms. Now that is ineffective.
By Lord on Feb 3, 2009 | Reply
That was his 2001 stimulus, not his 2003 stimulus, or his 2007 stimulus.