We see so many numbers tossed around - costs of war, costs of bailouts, annual revenue of multi-nationals, etc. So many numbers that I think most people don't really realize how huge a number $700 billion dollars really is.
I am not a numbers guy by any means, but I have an odd interest in numbers and figuring out how they relate.
So I took this huge $700 billion dollar number and started putting it into context in a way that average joe on the street could relate.
More below the fold...
So exactly how much is $700,000,000,000 BILLION dollars?
If this bailout left and formed it's own country, it would become the 17th largest country in the world when ranked by Gross Domestic Product.
This $700,000,000,000 billion is enough money to buy an 8GB iPod nano for just over 75% of EVERYONE on Earth.
It is enough to buy a Honda Accord for pretty much every man, woman, and child in the state of California.
So after these superficial numbers, I decided to see what could be done with the money in really beneficial ways, such as clean, renewable energy.
Here's one I really like - we could build about 700 of these solar power plants, generating enough electricity to power about 49,000,000 households, about 43% of all homes in the US! Imagine what an impact that would have on our carbon footprint. Not to mention that these power plants create an average of 1,500 jobs which would add up to over one million jobs created just from these 700 plants alone.
I can't find good metrics on how many jobs would be created at the various solar & electric component manufacturers, but I imagine this would create many jobs there as well.
Of course there are a lot of other factors that I don't take into account such as upgrades to the grid, distribution, control systems etc, but I think you can see what I am getting at here.
What it comes down to is do we spend $700 BILLION to fix mistakes others made in hopes it prevents further meltdown?
Or do we spend $700 BILLION to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and create over a million new jobs?
Am I missing something here? Because to me spending $700 BILLION on a new energy economy seems like a bargain and it makes me wonder why we have not just gone and done it already. Hell the money we piss away on Iraq every month could throw up 10 of these large solar plants every month.
Maybe someone with a background in engineering and numbers can come up with even more accurate, detailed numbers. These numbers are just from casual research over my lunch hour. I have to say I was surprised how affordable large-scale solar installations are becoming.