AmeriCorps in Limbo - How much is a billllion?

[TacticalPeek]

Lack of funding leaves AmeriCorps in limbo

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Congress has been unable to resolve disputes over whether to funnel $100 million to the financially troubled agency.
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link http://www.pressherald.com/news/state/030731americorp.shtml

I post this not only because I want the evil Delay to die a thousand political deaths for the destruction he brings to our great country. Nor only because I see around our planet their growing Vandalism, pillage, and waste. Rather I want to show the gargantuan magnitude of that waste.

This week Senators tried to get the usurpers at the hearing table before them to tell us, when it comes time to meet Mr. Green on this 'reconstruction' matter, "How much?". Believe it or don't, Wolfman and the OMB type would NOT tell them! Then today, I catch Bremer on 24hrcabletv saying in effect, "We may not know exactly, but it's a lot, or what many people would call a lot; fifty, sixty to a hundred billion.". $50,000,000,000; $60,000,000,000; $100,000,000,000.

God. I have already been nearing seizure thinking daily about Darth Rummy and DoD's separate four billion a month, billion a week, whatever. And "Whatever." is about what the war meister said at HIS Senate hearing earlier, where he admitted to about double or more the cost from previous estimates (with his eyes averting, head down, voice low; check the tape). Hearing him was when I started thinking as I sometimes do about a billion dollars. One thousand million dollars.

To wit:

In these times of an economy, some of us may find ourselves in the "consultant pool" sector, and be therefore, familiar with hourly billing for service, say, like software development. And say this involves very specialized skill and knowledge work, worth, oh, $150 per hour, and it will take loads of hours. Sweet, by my lights, even if I do have to pay the FICA myself, etc. Especially the "loads of hours" part. And software gets like that, you can just go and go and go.

And even say, there's one of those special clients, the sort who eschew underpaying in the extreme, like they cannot spend enough. Got it?

So let's go to a thousand dollars an hour (we're really good)! And then let's imagine that we could work 24 hours a day! And 7 days a week, nonstop! (I'm afraid that bill will pass any day now.)

So, constantly, without break, 24/7, $1,000 per hour! How long to make a billion? Over ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN years!

You would have to start when Grover Cleveland was President and work constantly 24/7 until now raking it in.

And when that drop in the bucket hits the hot-stove qWagmire, pssssttt...gone in a week.

ONE DAY, ONE DAY of that flaming DoD money would cover the AmeriCorps $100 mil for the year, and leave over $40 mil for veterans health, etc.

God. This is only some of what's being poured down the money pits. And only some of what they have deigned to tell us. Gargantuan, steaming piles of money, with flies buzzing around, gorged to drunkenness.

And true, one person does not earn that billion dollars through a vampire-like hundred year labor. Many people earn it, many workers produce it, it is a REAL transaction of OUR time and endeavor.

The wrong people are spending it on the wrong things. WE HAVE TO WIN.

[freemar]

1. What is a billion?

Think of it this way:

Imagine: $1 million (real) = $1 (imagined)
and $10,000 (real) = 1 penny (imagined)
then $1 billion (real) = $1,000 (imagined)

During my Lifetime, I don't know if will even make much more than $1 of these imagined dollars, while the war efforts is costing $1,000s a day.

That's a sobering thought.

[TacticalPeek]

2. The obscenities that attach to monies on this scale

The obscenities that attach to monies on this scale are difficult to know, much less comprehend.

It would take battalions of forensic accountants and companies of reporters to explicate and cover the waste, fraud, abuse and greed that cloud around like flies on feces.

What was it, $1.2 TRILLION that the Pentagon cannot account for?

Lessee, $1.2 TRILLION would be bigger by about 1000 than the example above. I guess that would put me back in pre-history working on that software project 24/7 until now. Of course, if the project was Windows, I'd still have loads of hours to go.