Comments on: Wait, Why Is It $700 Billion Exactly?

By: Noelegy

Noelegy — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:11:20 +0000

Well yeah, it's always easy to be generous with other people's money. I heard today that the value of the bad mortgages was around $100 billion. So where was the rest of the money going to go?

By: sw

sw — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:21:18 +0000

Johnny Cat, I love your idea! I could pay off 1.5 credit cards, a win-win for me AND the creditors.

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 05:04:41 +0000

To clarify, there's a claim making the email rounds that if the AIG bailout was divided among the estimated 200 million taxpayers, it would be 425,000...when in fact that math was way wrong, and included 3 too many zeroes.

Also, while the 3500 bucks may not be as desirable, if each citizen got that as a check in the mail, I would think they would pour it back into their credit balances, make mortgage payments, and buy products. The money still funnels to the rich bankers, without the temptation for them to just pocket it, and leave us debtors in the dark. The Paulson plan is to simply hand them the cash.

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 02:36:41 +0000

Uh yeah, sorry. That was from someone claiming the same thing on the AIG bailout. I estimate 200 million voters divided into 7 billion to be about 3500 before tax, if they tax. Sorry again, long day!

By: Jerse

Jerse — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 02:33:27 +0000

@Cheeseduck

You are forgetting minors and foreigners

By: CheeseDuck

CheeseDuck — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:54:13 +0000

$700,000,000,000 / 305,275,000 People in America = $2,293.01 per American

Certainly NOT $425 per VOTING American.

By: xirvyg

xirvyg — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:20:57 +0000

Johnny Cat: I don't understand, you think there are over 1.6 billion voting Americans?

By: Moon

Moon — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:07:45 +0000

Mooncake (love your handle BTW), Hahahaha! That can't be right! If it is, it's hilarious. Like declaring 15 exemptions on your income tax, because if you declare 16, they look at it.

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:40:48 +0000

I've done the math, and it's more like $425 per voting American.

By: zephyrum

zephyrum — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:09:04 +0000

Funny thing is, that's about $250,000 per voting American. Why don't they just split the money up among us? ^__^

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:45:58 +0000

I believe the number is actually about a trillion if you count the other smaller bailouts. $85 billion for AIG, and $200 billion for fannie/freddie. That puts us just at $985 billion (that we're undoubtedly borrowing ourselves).

One thing that stuck out at the debate was that earmarks make up a total of $18 billion per year, so if we arbitrarily add that number, we can just barely top the big $1,000,000,000,000. Hooray, US! They say our education system sucks, but we can count reeeeeeeeaaaallly high.

By: Christophe

Christophe — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:28:43 +0000

TimO : d*mn! you got it before me

By: gtron

gtron — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:22:03 +0000

apparently if they chose 800 it was "too close to a Trillion" and wouldn't fly
it's a comedy show, and you are both the audience AND the sucker...
lay your money down!
(oh, and hurry up and give it to us! Oh, and, no, we don't want any oversight - in eight months when the whole thing tanks, we'll have funneled the money out to the rich guys again, and the country goes under

By: TimO

TimO — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:06:39 +0000

...because the number $666 Billion scared the hell out of 'em even more....

By: Sue Dunham

Sue Dunham — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:01:05 +0000

You put the little finger to the side of your mouth and say the number in a portentous voice

By: MoonCake

MoonCake — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 10:07:57 +0000

i could be wrong on this one, but i read that they chose $700 billion because that's the max amount allowed to be spent without being questioned by the federal reserve.. or something like that...

even if 95% of us are questioning it....

By: Evil Pundit

Evil Pundit — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 08:53:19 +0000

They should use that newly discovered Mersenne prime. That would be cool.

By: DoctorFedora

DoctorFedora — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 08:34:55 +0000

Er, eight is only a lucky number in China. In Europe-based cultures, it's seven that you're thinking of.