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Talking NAMA, how much is a billion?

Posted by Karl Deeter on 30 March 2010 - Leave a Comment - Printer Friendly Version

While we are all hearing about ‘a billion this’ and a ‘billion that’ for various financial institutions I would hope that we don’t lose sight of what a ‘billion’ actually is.

A billion seconds ago it was 1959
A billion minutes ago you could have spoken to Jesus… In person
A billion hours ago our ancestors in the stone age were eating raw meat and dying regularly of things like the common cold.
A billion days ago we were not bipedal.

So a billion is a big number, its a one with twelve zeros after it

€1,000,000,000,000

If you earned the minimum wage of €8.65 it would take you over 13 million years of non stop work, day and night, seven days a week to earn a billion euro (pre tax).

We are getting shafted, it doesn’t feel good.

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3 Responses to “Talking NAMA, how much is a billion?”

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Joe Says:
March 30th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Karl - I think in Ireland / UK / USA you will find that a billion is a thousand million - ie 9 zeros not 12.

Regards
Still a lot of money though !!
karl deeter Says:
March 30th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Hi Joe and also @andyeire and @lisa_pereira

I stand corrected on one hand and not on another, you see, a billion can be either the ‘long scale’ version (multiply a number by itself) or the short scale (where it is in increments of 000′).

12 zeros is the long scale version which I mentioned and is in fact WRONG when dealing with the bailout figures which are all in the short scale amounts where 1 billion = 1,000,000,000

The figures on timelines - seconds minutes etc. are all accurate using the short scale, then I diverged (and don’t remember why) to the long scale on the bit about earning the minimum wage. So my figures are both wrong and right, or right and wrong depending on which scale you apply.

The main thing though, is that one way or another our banking bailout is VERY VERY expensive!

Anyway, I am glad to see that I won’t get away with being anything less than entirely diligent on the sums, I appreciate ya dropping by and hope y’all come back soon!
cheers
karl

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Talking NAMA, how much is a billion?

3 Responses to “Talking NAMA, how much is a billion?”

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