Re: FW: Billion Here, Billion There

you can read this on-line at
   http://newsdarktime.blogspot.com

it was the late, great, illinois senator, Everett DIrksen, who said that first in the present context:

   "A Billion here, a billion there,
    and pretty soon, you are talking _real_ money"

The amazing thing was he said that in the late 50s, and it's still true today.  The only problem is, that now, as your example shows, we speak not in units of billions, but Tens, and Hundreds.   

I taught algebra (and geometry) for two years.  the thing that concerned me the most, is the sort of lesson your example shows.    many of us can (barely) remember a billion seconds ago, so, extending that to minutes, hours and days is an instructive way to make the point that a Billion is a _huge_ number.   

In my lower wall street class room, i occasionally get to point out:  if you could fill this room up (you could, barely) with a million dollars, you couldn't fit a billion dollars in this whole building ( it would take 3 forty
story buildings like it),  and it would probably take all the financial district, and lower manhattan.  below canal street, just to  hold a  Trillion.  but, who's counting.

in the forwarded story. the assumption is that the money (however much) would be  evenly distributed.   No, too much of the money is going to rebuild casinos, and manufacturers of flimsy mobile homes.    The new gov. of Louisiana, who ran on a "clean up the state" slate, once elected has backed down on his pledge to not meddle with the legislature's committee chair positions -- considered a major source of the patronage outflow in that state.    

That's "Hope" down there, with her neck in the noose.
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On Dec 12, 2007 6:24 PM, Al Telford <alleetelford@yahoo.com > wrote:

>
> 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??
>
>