Fun with math. (How much is $3 Trillion?) - Frightening.

[Mugsy]

I like to tinker with numbers every now and then, and after a little research:

When all is said & done, the final cost of Bush's war in Iraq... veteran care, replacing vehicles/weapons/ammunition, etc... will be $3 TRILLION DOLLARS.

Just how much is $3 Trillion dollars?

• If you were forced to spend $1 million dollars a day, it would take you over 8.2 BILLION YEARS to spend $3 Trillion dollars.


• $3T spread out in dollar bills would form an eight-lane super highway to the moon (assuming standard 14' wide lanes).


• You could fill just under 263.5 Empire State Buildings with stacks of one dollar bills.


• We could of bribed every single member of Saddam's 350,000 man army $8.5 million dollars each to overthrow him.


• Or you could of paid every man, woman & child living in Iraq (before the war) $120,000.
  (consider that the average Iraqi income in 2003 was only $510 a year).

Please K&R. I'd like this to gain some traction. :)

[JeffR]

1. K & R

:kick:

[silverweb]

2. Wow.

Now that's putting things in perspective. Well done!

:kick:

[rocktivity]

3. Veteran care? VETERAN CARE???

Stop wasting our bloodstained tax money on meaningless frivolities!!!

:headbang:
rocknation

[JohnnyLib2]

4. Incredible. I'm going to use that elsewhere.

Thanks. K & R

[Mugsy]

13. Questions on one item.

I'm questioning my figures on the "Empire State Building" example. Here's the problem:

A dollar bill is 15.57cm long, 6.35cm wide and 0.01cm thick.

The cubic volume of the ESB is 37,000 square feet (1,127,760,000 cubic cm)

Done this way, I get 1826.43 ESB's. Done yet another way I get 11.7 (it's the "cubic" part that's screwing me up.)

If anyone good at math can correctly calculate this one for me, I'd appreciate it.

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. Your volume of the ESB is not, for one, a volume. Secondly, it can't be right.

Even it were 37,000 cubic feet (and not square feet), there's no way that's right.

My apartment has almost as much cubic feet as that.

[Mugsy]

20. ESB website.

The official ESB website states the volume is "37,000 cubic feet".

I need assistance on the rest of the math. I keep losing my place.

37,000 * 12" * 12" (cubic) is 365.76 cubic cm per foot * 37,000 = 13,533,120ccm.

0.01cm thick bills stacked 30.48cm high (12") is $3,048 in a 12" stack. That's were I get lost calculating the number of bills in a cubic foot. Whatever that is, multiply it times 37,000 for the amount to fill one ESB. Diving $3T by that value for the number of buildings.

[Rabrrrrrr]

22. Big difference between 37 million (as the website says) and 37,000

Dude.

:7

That's wrong by a factor of three orders of magnitude.

Also, I don't know how you figure there are 365 cubic centimeters per cubic foot - there are 28316 cubic centimeters per cubic foot. Again, you are off by two orders of magnitude.

[Mugsy]

28. Okay, check this math.

Different sites showed different units, and I lost track.

I redid the numbers. Someone may want to verify my figures:

Volume of Dollar: 6.35cm wide, 15.5956 cm long, 0.01cm thick = .9903206 cubic cm

365.76ccm in a foot.

365.76 / .9903206 = # of $ in cubic foot = $369.3349406

ESB: 37 million cubic feet * $369.3349406 = $13,665,392,800 per ESB

3,000,000,000,000 / $ = 219.5 ESB's.

Pretty close to my original figure.

[Rabrrrrrr]

29. No. You're still using your old figure for cubic centimeters in a cubic foot.

It's not 365, it's 28000-whatever it was I posted.

So, doing the math quickly in my head and rounding things off a bit, it comes to about 8 empire state buildings.

(3 trillion dollars at just under 30000 dollars a cubic foot is 300 million cubic feet of dollars,

divided by 37 million cubic feet per ESB yields about 8 ESBs)

[Mugsy]

30. That doesn't seem right.

A cubic foot is 144" (12 x 12).

144 cubic inches = 365.76 cubic cm.

(1 in = 2.54cm)

You see why I'm having so much trouble! :)

[Rabrrrrrr]

34. Cubic is a measure of volume - it's three dimensional.

Basic geometry.

And I have to say, dude, your math is utterly bizarre.

A square foot is 12"x12" - that is, ~30 cm x ~30 cm = ~900 square cm (precisely it is 929 square cm).

You can't turn inches into area and then multiply by 2.54 cm to the inch. If you go into area first, which is inches squared, you have to multiply by 2.54 and then by 2.54 again. The best idea always, though, is to do the conversion first - convert inches to cm, and then do the volume or square area calculations.


But that's only a surface are -

Cubic, being a measure of volume, involves three measurements - width, height, length.

And thus, it's 12"x12"x12", which comes out to the 28316 cubic cm.

[AzDar]

5. Horrifying.

[Sherman A1]

31. That' sums it up pretty well

can't think of a better way to say it.

[Journeyman]

6. Yes, but to keep it at such a small number -- $3 Trillion -- when must we leave Mess O'Potamia?. . .

k&r with hopes $3 Trillion is all we spend on this catastroph*#k.

[ColbertWatcher]

7. Very nice.

All I have is a link to what http://www.wikiality.com/5_million_emails">five million looks like.

Three trillion just makes too big a page...or maybe...give me a minute...

[ColbertWatcher]

25. Well...

...that took longer than I expected and it isn't very funny.

Anyone else want to take a crack at it, you're more than welcome <http://www.wikiality.com/3_Trillion_Dollars>

[OwnedByFerrets]

8. Kicked

Nice work.

[Greyskye]

9. Don't forget the cookie math

Anyone remember this oldie but goody from Ben, of Ben and Jerry?
http://www.truemajority.org/oreos/


:kick: and R

[nichomachus]

10. Are you sure?

Are you sure about the 8.2 billion years thing? I come up with 8200 years, but maybe it's because I spilled wine on my abacus.

[Stuckinthebush]

36. Yup...I get 8,219

Still a lot of years.

[Warpy]

11. K&R because too many people

just can't wrap their minds around anything larger than a $100 bill.

[Gman]

12. Reminds me of a birthday card I bought the other day

Cheney is telling Bush that we can expect 10,000 Brazilians to help in the war on terror.

Open the card

Bush asks Cheney, "How much is a Brazilian?"

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

14. Unreal. Even with the perspective you provide, it's still,...un-real!!!

:wow:

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. 8.2 billion years at $1 million per year. 8219 years at $1 million per day.

Also, it's "could have", not "could of".

How did you figure the Empire State Building numbers and the super highway numbers?

[Mugsy]

18. The math

Oops, I forgot to divide by 1 million. :(

$3,000,000,000,000 / 365.25 = 8.2 billion. Div by 1mil = 8219 years. Too late to edit the original post. :(

The math for the ESB is listed above in another reply.

On the "highway to the moon", the distance to the moon is 382500 km. a dollar is 15.57cm long. A standard highway lane is 14' (426.72cm) wide.

I'd appreciate anyone going back over the math. It appears I rushed it. :(

[Rabrrrrrr]

21. I get an 18 lane highway.

[Mugsy]

26. I must have rushed it.

I need to review all of the figures. The biggest errors seem to arrise when I must convert between inches & cm, and estimating volume. :(

[girl gone mad]

16. And people wonder why our dollars are becoming worthless. n/t

[Rabrrrrrr]

19. Another way to look at the spending per day figure:

Assume that 3 trillion is put into a CD at a mere 3.5% per year earning rate. That's a yearly earnings of $105 billion.

At that rate, you have to spend $287.7 million per day just to keep the principal amount at $3 trillion.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

23. That's,...depressing,...in so many ways. Scary, too!

Oh, my gosh! I just can't say. ;(

[Rabrrrrrr]

24. That $3 trillion would have made an incredible endownment for the US

[trotsky]

27. Excellent, but please correct the grammar before zipping around the world.

It's not "could of," it's "could have."

[lostnfound]

32. But what would that have done to help Halliburton, Carlyle or Blackwater?

NOTHING.

[Festivito]

33. 3T$/300M A's = $10,000.00 per American -- including each kid.

Note that we've paid about 1T$, debt is set to reach 10T$.

12T$/300 Million Americans = $40,000 per American.
Family of four owes: $120,000

BUT, WAIT, THERE'S MORE.

They bought a $250,000 house with $50,000 downpayment.
Now they owe 320,000 having a 120,000 house after housing devalued.

That's 200,000 of uncollateralized debt.

BUT, WAIT, THERE'S MORE.

It will just be taken out of their pension, health care, college funding, etc.

[klyon]

35. isn't it 3,000 billion or 3 million million

but yes it would be easier to just give them the money
could buy some friends

[superkia]

37. K&R!!!!

[roamer65]

38. Dipshit Bush will be on the $3T hyperinflation notes...

when they are printed.