What is a Billion?

[Jennifer5]

A Billion!!!!! Here's some thought provoking information -

The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" in a casual manner, think about whether you want the "politicians" spending your tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

a.. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
b.. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
c.. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
d.. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
e.. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans - It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division ............

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans.

Interesting number, what does it mean?

a.. Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, child), you each get $516, 528.
b.. Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1, 329,787.
c..Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012.

Washington, D.C......HELLO!!!................Are all your calculators broken????

[awediot]

...and a billion ways a few hundred people can pocket it.

Thanks for another "what am I laughing at?" moment.

[BruceChris]

Jennifer: It is my impression that most of the time, what the politicians in
Washington actually prefer to do is posture and look good, without actually spending any money unless it benefits one of their special interests. No one wants to spend the actual amount of money it would take to build the dikes
to a level 5 hurricane status, which would certainly be several times the
$250 billion. This would be impossible to do with even a wartime level of
mobilization before the next hurricane season starts, in a few months anyway. But certainly no politician wants to come out publically and write off New Orleans. It's just talk.

But hey, here's a couple of numbers for you. The 350 miles of dikes in New Orleans could, mathematically, surround almost 10,000 square miles of land.
The actual land area of the city of New Orleans, 180 sq. miles, is a tiny fraction of that.
That is a waste of hundreds of billions of dollars right there. B.C.