How much is a billion dollars

[Wolverine@MSU]

The administration is asking Congress to approve additional 10's of BILLIONS of dollars, on top of the 90 or so BILLION already appropriated to fund the wars for this year in Iraq and Afganistan. When numbers like this get bandied about, it is easy to lose sight of just how much money this is.

Overall, the wars are thought to be costing in the hundreds of Billions of dollars (500 - 600 BILLION). We all know that a billion is a thousand million, so to put it in perspective, what they are asking for just this year would be enough to give 160,000 cities and towns across the country a million dollars apeice! If the money that was spent on the wars were instead distributed to the states, each of the 50 states would get $10,000 MILLION. Just think how far that money could have gone to improving health care, rebuilding infrastructure, funding our schools and a myriad of other needs faced by towns and cities across the country.

Put another way, the wars have cost each and every citizen of the USA, every child, woman and man about $2,000 each. A family of four could probably have spent their $8,000 in a way that better improves the quality of life in the US than the government did to "make us safer from terrorists".

[Hawk]

Good perspective there Wolvy.
Only downside I see to it is the near undeniable possibility that if the politicians weren't spending that 600 billion on the war, they would more than likely be padding their pockets with it and we still wouldn't see any of it.

[Gwizz]

A billion is 1000 X million; but your point is well taken.

Most of that money goes to line the pockets of those who over charge to supply the war materials. The Goverment alway seems to pay too much and cater to the profiteers.

[Eb Zane]

Good perspective there Wolvy.
Only downside I see to it is the near undeniable possibility that if the politicians weren't spending that 600 billion on the war, they would more than likely be padding their pockets with it and we still wouldn't see any of it.

Hawk you've been around long enough to know that the polits are doing both. Add on to that all the thank yous they get back from friends with contracts.

And the US Gulf Coast could have done what with 1/2 of that money. The Decider knows

[Wolverine@MSU]

A billion is 1000 X million;

I thought that's what I said:

We all know that a billion is a thousand million,...

Most of that money goes to line the pockets of those who over charge to supply the war materials.

There was a time when this was called "war profiteering" and those guilty of it were shot!

[Eb Zane]

Ah the good old days Now we call them Mr Vice President.

[Gwizz]

Whoops, sorry mis-read, those big numbers that didn't seem to be adding up correctly. But then my grey matter adding machine does not normally deal with numbers that big. I'll re-read a second time.

Too many zeros for my calculator. It just spits powers of, at me.

[JayEff]

Hmm, when I ran an orchard I related to financial matters in terms of bins of apples. So if they bring 25 cents a pound, 800 pounds per bin, that is $200 per bin. So a $1,000,000,000 is 5,000,000 bins of fruit. Well we can get 50 bins per acre per year so a billion dollars is all the bins from 100,000 acres.

So if I farm 10 acres for 10,000 years, I will gross a billion dollars.
Easy!

[Eb Zane]

Hmm, when I ran an orchard I related to financial matters in terms of bins of apples. So if they bring 25 cents a pound, 800 pounds per bin, that is $200 per bin. So a $1,000,000,000 is 5,000,000 bins of fruit. Well we can get 50 bins per acre per year so a billion dollars is all the bins from 100,000 acres.

So if I farm 10 acres for 10,000 years, I will gross a billion dollars.
Easy!

better start planting some more trees

EZ

[Gwizz]

JayEff, I like the way you calulate.

Wolverine, when I read your post, I thought those figures have to be wrong.

Since then, I've done some research. It is hard to know the truth.
But, the total cost is far higher than I would have guessed.

Just in my state of Washington:
Estimate of wars cost so far, low 3.1 billion - high 10.4 billion.
My personal cost as a taxpayer $3,400.00. Per household $4,100.00,
Per ever person $516.00, but the low to high estimates range up to $1,500.00 per person.

For the probable total over all cost of the war: ranges from 3.1 to 10.4 billion.
For the US this range is from 100 billion to 1.2 trillion.

What is a trillion? (I remember reading that over 2 trillion turned up missing from the last building to fall after the twin towers fell) Hummm someone must have rescued a truck load of one hundred dollar bills.

I guess 1t all depends upon who you ask and how figures are used.
My great uncle used to tell me, "you have to figure the figures and you still won't understand them if you are not ment to"

The following site has a running counter adding up the present cost of the war. Who knows if the figures are true. Whatever, certainly they are too high.

http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php ... Itemid=182

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On another topic I just heard Seattle is first in another catagory.
Of larger cities it has the greatest percentage of people who do not attend church. This goes with the highest percentage of car thefts and close to the highest personal average income for a large city. (Over $ 1 million)

Also it was predicted that Seattle could slide into the Sound if the big predicted earth quake hits. After thinking about this I remember reading that on the Lake Washington side of Seattle a whole forest slid into this cold deep lake many years ago. A few years ago an Inteprising man with a tugboat was lassoing these standing trees with a cable and loading them on a barge to take to a saw mill. Seattle took the trees away from him, claiming ownership of the trees. Since what comes around usually goes around, maybe Seattle will Slide.

Now how does all this fit together. Hummmmm

Another interesting note: there is a string of coal cars sitting on the bottom of Lake Washington with the cars still full of coal. Seems they rolled off a barge during a rough weather crossing many years ago.

[Eb Zane]

Gwizz with every thing slidin every which a way it sounds like time to start thinkin about movein. I understand that AZ railRat has some land for sale that is about to become seaside

EZ

[AZ Rail Rat]

Was listening to Old Time Radio on Sirius this morning on the way to work - The Bob Hope Show. Did not catch what year, but I think Harry came on wanting eveyone to buy their FOURTH set of war bonds. He said they had sold something like $13 Billion so far.

I wonder how far Georgee's war would have gotten if he had to finance it like Frankie and Harry did WWII?