I remember a quote from Everett McKinley Dirksen, former senator from Illinois saying "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money". Here is an email I received that puts another look on what a billion is:
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 it's releases.
A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
A billion days ago no one walked on earth on two feet.
A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and twenty minutes at our rate of spending.
A Louisiana senator is asking $250 billion to rebuild New Orleans. What does that mean?
If you are one of the 484,674 residents it equals to $516,528 each.
If you have one of the 188,251 homes, your home gets $1,329,787.
If you are a family of four, you get $2,066,012.
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Now my rant-
Got the idea of a billion now?
Add to that, one hundred years ago, almost none of the taxes we have now even existed.
Our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt.
We had the largest middle class in the world,
and mom stayed home to raise the kids.
A lot has changed for the better in the last one hundred years and it took taxes to accomplish much of it. Taxes have become a way of life with us. Everything is taxed, sometimes multiple times.
We understand taxes. We understand a billion.
Some people don't- they are called politicians.
You know what bothers me most?- politicians are now talking trillions-
Trillions, and we are losing the middle class.
But don't worry about the politician, they have taken care of themselves.
beyondtheveil posted on Jan 16, 2008
| views: 131
Comments
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uniquely-ironic said on Jan 16, 2008....
That's one of my pet peeves too. I'm tired of paying taxes on everything I do.
One of my functions at work is to review documents, some financial. Every time the world billion (or even million) comes up I pause a minute trying to fathom just what one of those billions of dollars would do for me.
My own opinion is that politicians should be paid no more than the top end of the average middle class citizen. If they had those confines to live within, perhaps they would think hard before imposing more taxes.
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bloc said on Jan 16, 2008....
i agree, but I have one little nitpick to point out. 100 years ago america wasn't in very good shape and didn't have much of a middle class. What we know of as middle class america came into being later than 1908. -
beyondtheveil said on Jan 16, 2008....
unique- If they find anything new to tax, it would have to be the afterlife. They wouldn't call it a tax though, they'd probably call it an entrance fee. Not only is it the wage of the politician, its the benefits, especially medical and retirement. Corporations are cutting medical and retirement for employees and theirs are like CEO's.
bloc- The nitpick is quite true. I put that in as a comparison to what they have done. There was much work in all areas to do in 1908. The unions I don't believe had even started their massive work that changed all areas of life for Americans we have today. Legislation for the betterment we have today possibly would have been feeble without changes and advances by unions.
Every aspect of life was fought for and won by the people, politicians only acted for the people if they felt it advanced themselves. Good topic for a post (or six).
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lfbno7 said on Jan 17, 2008....
My wife always talks about 20 million. Whatever it is, there are 20 million of them. I have 20 million things to do today. It's kind of funny when you think about it, because her point is that she has a lot to do, and she chooses the word "million" to express that, because a million is a lot, but she also chooses the word "20" to express that, because 20 is a lot, so by saying 20 million she's saying a lot a lot. I think "20" and "a million" are about the same amount to her. They're both a lot. -
beyondtheveil said on Jan 17, 2008....
7- I like your story. She has found the answer to include all the 'extras', I think. What I hear most from people is 'a million' things to do. My wife usually just says 'I have so much to do', then adds 'and I don't want to do any of them'. Then she goes ahead and does it.
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mOOn_platOOn
posted on Dec 20, 2008
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ONothing like a sense of entitlement and dynasty politics to keep things "changing" in Washington, eh? Who cares if New York's next senator doesn't even bother to vote?
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