romadbuff writes:
"The cost of freedom can not be measured in dollars and cents. For
those of you who have never left the continental USA, you have no idea
what you have or what it cost to keep it. I wonder if we went back to Sept
10th, 2001 and asked the 3k people that died in the terrorist attacks the
next day, how much would 'enough' money to keep you and your loved ones
alive? What would they say? By fighting these assholes on their own turf,
we keep them occupied, their thoughts are on staying alive, not planning
the next attack on US soil. The last thing they are thinking of when a B52
drops 20, 500lb bombs on their heads is what's the easiest way to get into
the Superbowl with a bomb.
"So, make jokes, poke fun at President Bush, the bottom line is this, I'd
rather spend $200 trillion dollars to keep the fight over there than see
one Mother or Father cry cause there child was in the daycare of the
building just leveled by one of those cowards. I'd rather be able to sit
in my living room, my feet up, a cold beer in my hand and watch their
Mothers and Fathers cry over them as they drag their dead bodies out of
the rubble of one of their buildings."
PSPMARINE writes :
"I totally support both wars going on
right now, but even for the most die-hard supporter, actually seeing a
representation of just how much money is going into them, it makes you
reconsider if it's worth it. Like I said, just hearing the numbers being
said isn't that bad, but when you actually see just how much money is
being used, in a comparison, you get a whole new perspective. That's a lot
of money."
Stephen Claypool writes :
I thought this might be of interest to
you. You may even want to put it on the site. Although I'm not sure about
copyright issues.
Google Earth Aerial 3d Satellite Image of Reliant Stadium Link.
I think the picture could give people some perspective on just how much
money it is, I mean, enough to nearly fill a stadium.
Here are some more:
Stadium Up Close No 3D Model |
Stadium No 3D Model |
Stadium No Angle
Jamie Friedland writes:
Just one thing to say... Dave Faris,
you are my hero. That's all there is to it.
widgitland
writes :
"Now I
understand that you're trying to make a point of how much money 87
billion dollars is, but I feel you're just exagerating the physical size
of money. That much money would never be in one's, at worst it would be
in 100's. In this case that would mean that the 900 million dollar stack
would be just over the 87 billion (at 90 billion in fact) and in the
picture below it, only the one square immediately next to the man and
the car would even be necessary. But that wouldn't get your point across
quite as well, so of course that wasn't even mentioned. Then again, why
not use quarters? Or better yet, pennies? I'm quite sure that 100
pennies takes up significantly more room than a $1 bill, which is even
increased since there is "wasted" space around the pennies
when placed next to each other. Let's go with this for a minute... 100
pennies is approximately 3/4" by 3/4" by 6" (two rolls of
pennies). Placed in a stack the same size as the $72,000 stack one one
dollar bills, the pennies add up to only $640. That means that you need
112.5 times the space in pennies. Now consider the $87 billion pile of
ones. The pennies would take up 112.5 times as much space! If you were
just going for an exageration of how much physical space that much money
takes up, I would think that pennies would be the best choice. Now my
point is this: No matter how you show the physical bills (or coins)
representing some vastly large amount of money, it just won't do it
justice. Either it will be too large, too small, not in
easy-to-understand bills, or whatever, but you just can't show that much
money in bills and correctly represent the amount of money that it
really is. I think that the quote at the bottom, "$166 billion is
$568 for every man, woman and child in the United States. It's $3,269
for every person in Iraq and Afghanistan", would be an excellent
way to show how much money it is if you also mentioned how many people
there are in the US and Afghanistan. A better way to represent that much
cash would be with material objects other than cash that everyone is
familiar with. Of course it's practically impossible to come up with
material objects totalling that much money, which is exactly the point.
No matter how much money there is, you can always say how much space the
cash will take up, changing largely depending on what bills you choose
to use. But imagine trying to come up with what to spend that much money
on for an average person... Just start the process, then buy 5 of
everything you just thought of, and you still have an unbelievable
amount of wealth left to spend. I think that if you thought of some good
examples of very expensive things to buy, bought them in bulk, and then
showed how much money is still left over you would do a much better job
of representing what a vast amount of cash that really is. To most
people, looking at a picture of a pile of cash doesn't really help them
understand how much money it is, just that it's a hell of a lot, which
is exactly how much they knew thinking "87 billion dollars, wow
that's a lot".
Just the thoughts
of a reader...take it or leave it."
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