Oh Noes!!!1! Bingo and Russ are Taking Over!
you know them from their own blogs, truth.gooberbear.com, and a time to pick out, and the comments section of this fine periodical. now, they’re taking through - either because they have come into my shady man cave with weapons drawn, or because i have to travel out of town for a wedding this weekend. the atheist reverend …
Innumeracy, the Bailout, US Debt and Apple Pies
Did you know that you can track the US debt to the penny daily through a US Treasury website? Today the total was $9,788,080,661,828.23. And we may hit 10 trillion plus as the Treasury funds its bailout package through sale of Treasuries. I’d trade the accuracy (do we need really need to know about the 23 cents?) for more information about what is included: for instance, does the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac affect this number?
Now we need to translate into something that can help us picture it. Let’s see … McDonald’s apple pies? If $700 billion = 2000 McDonald’s apple pies per US resident, then today’s federal debt is almost 28 levitra de,000 McDonald’s apple pies per US resident. (Yes, even lawyers sometimes deal with numbers, contrary to my students’ belief.)
Here’s an image from John Allen Paulos’ excellent book, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences: “It takes only eleven and a half days for a million seconds to pass, whereas almost thirty-two years are required for a billion seconds to pass.” And a trillion? Yikes.
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