TIGblogs - Lorraine Siew WM

The dollar amount of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s government bailout plan has been hammered into all our brains by now: 700 billion. But lest we lose sight of how much that actually is, VF.com compiles its own list of other things the lump sum could have been spent on. (All figures approximate.)

• Things that would be useful:
-Preventing 200 million foreclosures
-Paying back our debt to Japan, with enough left over for Luxembourg or Russia
-Paying the equivalent of 10 years of total international humanitarian aid at current levels, per Jeff Sachs's estimate
-Tripling the income of the billion people in the world who are living on $1/day or less
-Providing bi-weekly $100 psychotherapy sessions for every American for a year

• Things that would be a wee bit Socialist:
-Paying for Social Security for next 40 years
-Providing healthcare for all Americans
-Buying Apple, Google, Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway

• Things that would be awesome:
-Throwing 100,000 lavish Las Vegas birthday parties with appearances by the Rolling Stones
-Buying Iraq and Afghanistan, with enough left over for Sweden (or 13 Iraqs, or 90 Afghanistans), measuring by G.D.P.
-Remaking The Dark Knight 3,800 times
-Buying 10,000 pounds of LSD, the most expensive thing in the world, per pound

• Things that would arguably be a waste of money:
-Paying for enough ads for the next 4,000 Super Bowls (with ads at $3 million)
-Buying 10 iPhones for every American (with iPhones at $200)
-Fighting for another 5 years in Iraq and Afghanistan at current costs
-Buying every Mega Millions ticket at current circulation for next 180 years
-Shipping five roses to everybody on the planet
-Buying the publishing and music industries wholesale
-Remaking Titanic 3,500 times

• Things that may come in handy when society collapses:
-Supplying at least two AK-47’s per person, including children (at about $1,000 a pop on the black market)
-Feeding every American on a Campbell’s soup diet for 2 years (at $1.29 a can)
-Buying 10 high-end tents for every American
-Providing a Tata—the miraculous, $2,500 Indian minicar—for every American of driving age

• Things that would quite possibly suck the Earth into black holes:
-100 Large Hadron Colliders

::VanityFair