A Billion Dollars is Heavy

I was listening to Rachel Maddow yesterday and learned an interesting little tidbit: A million dollars in $100 bills weighs 22 lbs. You might want to find out what Ms. Maddow was talking about. Me? I went off on a tangent.

It’s hard to get your head wrapped around a billion dollars. I’ve showed you a picture of a billion dollars. The math ought to be pretty straightforward for all of us. If a million dollars weighs 22 lbs., then a billion (1,000 million) dollars in cash weighs 22,000 lbs. That’s 11 tons.

Remember the $3.7 billion-dollar man? Paulson? If he could convert that year’s income (that’s right, one year’s income) to cash, it would weigh 81,400 lbs. That’s more weight than a C-130 can carry. (Okay, more than it’s supposed to carry. You get the point.)

”Payload: 45,000 lb (20,000 kg)
Useful load: 72,000 lb (33,000 kg)”

It’s not a problem really. Paulson can certainly afford two of them. Well, actually, he could buy 59 of them with one year’s earnings.

”Unit cost US$62 million”

According to Forbes, there are 402 billionaires in the United States. Do you really think these guys need a tax break?

The thing that bothers me is the power that kind of money bestows on someone. Here’s another way to think about it. The most expensive Senate race in the country cost a little under $50 million. Theoretically, one third of the Senate is up for change every two years. That’s 33.3 Senators. If you could funnel $50 million to all 33 (and one third), you would spend $1,665,000,000. Paulson would still have $2 billion left over to spend on the House.

That’s a lot of influence. If you were so inclined to spend it on such things.

I want you to take a look at this list -- Forbes400 - The Richest People in America. Scroll down and look at names on numbers 4-9. Every one of them a Walton or Koch. That would be the Wal-Mart ”We Crush Unions” Walltons and the Koch brothers that financed the Tea Party movement. And the Supreme Court said they can spend an unlimited amount of money on political campaigns now.

Do you understand why the Republicans want to make sure the rich keep their tax cuts too? And they’re not scared of infuriating 15 million unemployed Americans by holding unemployment benefits hostage to get it done either. Imagine being able to thumb your nose at 15 million voters. (Obama won by less than 10 million votes. ) As we used to say, way back when, that’s heavy.

Don Brown
December 11, 2010