I got to hold $1 million in hundreds once, and THAT was alot of money. That's only 1/1000th of 100 billion. <br /><br /><br />
And the population isn't 300 million, and I'd say only about half actually pay taxes. So it will cost each tax payer probably over $1000.
That's an intersting way to put it. This has been a very enlightening thread.<br /><br />I am not speaking as a liberal, Democrat or anything even political, but that 100 billion, or 960 billion will end up in a few peoples pockets, and not truly benefit the masses as one would expect. Sure it will benefit the lucky ones in the NO area, and other disaster areas, but beyond repairing the infrastucture, no wealth will be replaced in the citizenry, only debt to rebuild personal properties and homes that insurance didn't cover. So when you deduct from that wealth the debt incrred by the citizens(victims of the hurricane and devastation) the actual benefit to the economy won't resutl in a substantial net increase. The net increase being the difference between the normal (pre-hurricane) economic activity in the area, and the recovery/rebuilding economic activity. I don't want to seem like a wet-blanket, but being a realist, the economic "BOOM" will be for the select few profiting (not necessarily a bad thing) from the recovery/rebuilding, not the society as a whole. Hopefully those profiting will be doing so on an appropriate profit margin, not a gouging greed.<br /><br />May God bless those whose lives have been impacted by this tragedy.<br /><br />Oh, and How much is 100 Billion Dollars? If you were to spend $1000/second, it would take you 3171YEARS to spend 100 billion. In contrast, to spend 1 billion under the same conditions it would take you 31years, 8 1/2 months.
David,<br /><br />Not to quibble but check your math:<br /><br />$1000/sec X 60sec/min X 60min/hour X 24hour/day X 365day/year = $31,536,000,000/year<br /><br />So...it would take 3.17 years to spend $100,000,000,000.<br /><br />To spend $1,000,000,000, it would take:<br />$1,000,000,000/$1,000/sec X 1 min/60sec X 1 hour/60 min X 1 day/24 hour = 11.57 days, which, coincidentally, is 100th of the amount of time it would take to spend $100 Billion.
<br />A fleet of 50 Los Angeles class nuclear submarines<br />Or buy an existing island country that would fit 500,000 peoples. 
