$500,000,000,000.00 - $700,000,000,000.00

That's about how much money the estimate is of the financial package needed to rescue our country from this economic crisis. That's a considerable sum of money to spend and not even be sure that the stimulus will work.

Mrs. B asked me what I was reading a little earlier today and I've been trying to make some sense out of the whole economic stimulus package, big 3 bailout, etc. Actually, I've not only been reading today, but for the last two months. So many different views and opinions about what should be done, what's worked in the past and more importantly what hasn't worked.

But, before I go down that path, I was interested in trying to understand the scope of the spending that the president elect is proposing. Something to put this amount of money into perspective. So I thought, okay, how high would a $700 B stack of money be? Started poking around on the web to find the height of a stack of currency and it seems that someone else had this thought as well. But, it still bears repeating, in a somewhat more abbreviated form.


If a stack of 250 dollar bills is about 1 inch high, as the article states then a $1,000 would be about 4" high. $1,000 divided into $700 billion equals 700,000,000 times 4" equals 2,800,000,000". Doesn't help much does it? So if we divide that number by 12 we get 233,333,333.33 feet.


Still not much help is it? Okay, so if measuring this in feet doesn't help let's try miles instead: 233,333,333.33' divided by 5,280 feet equals 44,191.91 miles. That's a lot of miles!

The earth's circumference at the equator is 24,901.55 miles so if we laid this stack of bills around the equator it would go around the earth more than one and three quarter times. Or, if left standing in one tall pile, this stack of bills would reach almost a fifth of the way to the moon based on an average distance from the Earth to the Moon of 238,857 miles. Pretty high stack of money, isn't it?

Well, let me get to my point of writing this entry in the first place. I have been reading a lot of the press concerning the economic decline, stagflation, rising unemployement, etc. and what needs to be done to correct this problem. What our president elect is suggesting is something akin to a new, New Deal, a la FDR. In one way, this kind of makes sense, you put people to work rebuilding infrastructure, developing green energy alternatives and the like. Businesses and individuals both benefit from the spending that in turn benefits other businesses through consumption of their goods and services. Or at least in theory.

Here is an opinion piece that I read this afternoon that implies that the New Deal may have been good at the time, but had a long term impact that our country did not fully feel until the late 60's thru the 80's: inflation, unemployment, high interest rates. Besides, as is indicated in the article, if people feel that the increase in their income is of a temporary nature, then they will not be as likely to consume as much as everyone thinks. If she is right, that what might happen from this huge spending plan 30 to 40 years down the road? Will it even work as intended?

I don't know what the answer is, I'll leave that to people smarter than I, but I do wish that our government would slow down and think this through very carefully. There is already talk of having this economic stimulus package on the president elect's desk his first day on the job. I don't believe that a spending plan this large should be implemented without a lot of thought given to whether it will work in the first place and second, what impact this will have on the generations to come.