As an addendum to yesterday’s post, linked here if you
can’t see it for some reason, I’d like to bring the monster known as the U.S.
Federal Government into my little “index” for perspective on vast amounts of
dollars.
To recap, for reasons given in the previous post, we proposed a “soros” equal to $25 billion dollars.
Then we compared some bigwig businessmen, some
politicians, and even humble old me on that index, that range of wealth, that
the big movers and shakers of the financial – and cultural – world.
But immediately after posting I realized I should have
re-imaged all of that against Uncle Sam. For comparative perspective reasoning. Since
I wrote and posted late last night, I was too exhausted to re-edit the post.
So …
The wealthiest man in yesterday’s post is the man
probably everybody thinks is the wealthiest man in the world – Bill Gates. I
don’t know if this is true and it currently doesn’t interest me. But Mr. Gates
ranked in at 3.1 soros. A little more than three times the wealth of George
Soros. Since one soros is $25 billion, 3.1 comes out to around $77.5 billion or
so, about what I found on the internet yesterday.
What about the U.S. federal government?
Quick googling tells me the estimated federal spending
for 2015 was $3.69 trillion dollars.
That’s 147.6 soros. That’s almost a soros every
two-and-a-half days.
This result conflicts me. Obviously it’s a huge
number, but I expected something huger.
How about – how much does Uncle Sam spend per hour, in both units of measurement?
Well, there are 8,760 hours in a year, so simple
division tells us that the hourly spending rate is roughly $420 million, or
around 0.016 soros, which falls somewhat neatly proportionate-wise between our
two Presidential candidates (almost ten times larger than the alleged net worth of one and almost ten times smaller than the alleged net worth of the other).
Still not sure to make of this, except to put it all
out there rambling style, and iterate the obvious conclusion that while the
federal government’s annual spending is an incredibly almost inconceivably
large number, so is a soros.
2 comments:
Our national debt is at 72 Soros. I think since ole George is such a supporter of progressive tax and spend policies, he should donate 1/2 soros to our national debt. Buffett and gates can follow suit.
Agreed. If you want to "change" America, it might not be a bad idea to "ante" in, pay to play. The only real way you and I, clocking in at the zero-point-zero-zero-zero-zero-something soros scale, can influence culture and politics is through our vote, one vote out of two hundred fifty million or so. Once you approach the tenth-soros range, however, I'd like to see some good-faith donations to pay down the debt.
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