WHATSA BILLION?

Here is another one that I am passing along- Enjoy! It sure made me laugh a bit.


Subject: WHATSA BILLION?

The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" in a casual manner, think about whether you want the "politicians" spending your tax money.

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 its releases.

a.. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

b.. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

c.. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

d.. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

e.. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans - It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division ............
Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans.

Interesting number, what does it mean?

Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, child), you each get $516,528.00.

Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787.00

Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012.00.

Washington, D.C. !!!...........................Are all your calculators broken????

Very interesting and intriguing... but there are more than just *residents* in New Orleans: what about all the businesses (bars/restaurants/shops/stores), schools, colleges, corporations, hospitals, social agencies, charities, local government departments, etc, let alone roads and transportation? And beaches and levies? Hmm?

Wait a sec... In English, a billion is 1000 times a million, right?

No. A billion is the same as 1,000 million.

Enzo reminds me of a good point...

A "billion" = 10 to the 9th power (one thousand million) in most English-speaking countries while others, including until recently in the UK even, a "billion" = 10 to the 12th power (a million million)

Read this for an explanation of this confusion.

The use of "billion" in the trivia above is apparently a thousand million. There are more examples on that link...

No. A billion is the same as 1,000 million. [/b][/quote]Wait... SC... that's still 1,000 times one million.

1,000 x 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000

:p

I think, maybe it just confused you because he spelt the numbers out? I don't know.

Yeah, in America they count like million, billion, trillion, ... and in Europe they count million, milliard, billion, trillion, ...
Brings confusion sometimes.