This is not a political blog, but perhaps I am a bit cranky after losing electricity and water for 5 days, so I will let this one slip by.
So here goes:
Image source: http://codenameblogtastica.blogspot.com/
…. he killed a helicopter with a car, and then he walked bare-foot on broken glass, and then he fired a few people, and then he suspended whatever that was going on and proceeded to Capitol Hill to beat the crap out of bad dudes and to rescue the economy.
Oh wait… it’s McClane not McCain you idiot. Oops! it’s probably the uncanny similarity between the looks of Mr. Willis and Mr. McClane Mr. McCain that confused me.
I don’t mean any disrespect, but I had to get this out because I actually had a dream of John McCain hanging “suspended” upside down in New York’s Central Park right above a huge pile of money (that looked like it was about $700 billion). I woke up a little scared and then realized that it’s because I read about David Blaine’s stunt before going to sleep last night - while I was being constantly bombarded by television commentary on McCain’s suspension of his campaign (or whatever - didn’t look much of a campaign anyways) and the $700 billion bailout.
You can imagine the kind of maverick-ish impact Mr. McClane Mr. McCain is having on me. 
Anyways, with that out of the way, there is something else I need to say. It has recently come to my attention that some people don’t really know how many zeroes are there in a billion! That calls for a little bit of elaboration on the numbers you might hear in the next few months.
$700 billion = $700,000,000,000
300 million = 300,000,000 (as per Google search, the actual number is close to 301,139,947 - go figure what this number is)
Now, $700,000,000,000/300,000,000 = $2333.33 per person
As per 2006 tax figures, there were 135,660,228 tax returns filed.
Now, $700,000,000,000/135,660,228 = $5159.95 per tax return
Some other numbers to put things into perspective.
For the year 2007, AIG CEO’s (Martin Sullivan) monetary compensation was $13.9 million ($13.9 million = $13,900,000)
Earlier this year, most people I know received economic stimulus payments that ranged between $600 and $1200
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Did you factor in the fact that the $700 billion is purchasing an asset?
Daniel,
Well I almost feel like we are buying $700 billion worth of junk stock.
Come to think of it, the way this thing is being portrayed is that the $700 billion is a huge loan to the corporations - which the corporations will pay back over time. To this end the corporations will be eager to start making a lot of money/profit as soon as thing whole financial instability thing passes by - so they will figure out novel ways of extract a bulk of it from the general public eventually.
Doesn’t seem like we will benefit a whole lot from this asset purchasing activity.
On the positive side, the flow of money (in-and-out) will probably keep millions of jobs and retirement accounts alive in the process.
Pretty sure there is lot more to this than what my tiny brain can fathom, but that’s what I am thinking right now. A few weeks later I might be a bit clearer about how this is going to go down.
Golbguru,
When are you going to run for public office? You have more common sense than a room full of congressmen:-)
Super: I will run for public office when you appear on Letterman for being funny.
On a serious note, this $700 billion deal is a bit unnerving to me. More so because I just cannot fathom how terrible this is all going to look another year down the line. May be Mr. McLane’s/Mr. McCain’s stunts will divert my attention when that happens.
Hi Golbguru,
I sent you an email a while ago but never received a response; can you please email me so we can discuss my proposal?
Thanks,
Andrew
Golbguru,
Ok, I’ll work on the Letterman appearance
Where has McClane been the last few days? We needed him
Golb if we were all given $5.1k each Id say that would be a pretty effective stimulus package. Granted the last one didn’t do… well… really anything for the economy…
That’s a very large number, I did a search for $700 Billion and the first result I found was:
-$4,780 for each taxpayer
-It could buy 4,590 McDonald’s apple pies for each and every American
-Could build 1,077 Chicago Trump Towers
Golb, by mere looking at the state of the economy,like Blian said “if we were all given $5.1k each Id say that would be a pretty effective stimulus package.” Now the issue will then be a massive circulation of cash equity putting us back to were we started from.
I guess we’ll watch and see for ourselves..
You won’t need to worry about your wealth when Obarmarxist buys the election… I’m mean get’s in office, and “redistributes” it.
@Golburg, I kep coming back to read more from you, but it seems you don’t update this blog again. You might start losing visitors like me soon.
why dont you update your blog? i have been readign this blog for many days. for the sake of getting further information, you should make up your mind for up-dation.
I am curious as to what final leg(s) we are left standing on? Obviously our economy can be roughly translated as “debt”. As our ability to borrow dwindles, so goes our economy.
Obviously our economy was way overheated in the late 90’s. So now we are contracting; I saw an article comparing Japan of the late 80’s to our economy at its peak, and thought it’s not coincidental that roughly the same thing is happening in the US.
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said last week the central bank, which has lowered the key rate by 2.25 percentage points since September, was ready to continue cutting borrowing costs if needed to stimulate growth.
Along with insurance operations and a stock portfolio valued at $75 billion, Berkshire owns businesses ranging from confectionery and residential property to utilities and corporate jet leasing, giving Mr Buffet an insider’s perspective on the economy and finance.
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