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The Wall Street Journal's Trillion-Dollar Error
In this age of big recession and big stimulus, what’s a few more zeros?
There was a delicious (I’m attempting irony here) Correction & Amplification in The Wall Street Journal today:
The U.S. budget deficit is projected to total $1.2 trillion this year. A page-one World-Wide news summary in some editions Jan. 8 incorrectly put the figure at $1.2 billion.
Though they ought to be fluent with numbers containing oodles (technical term) of zeros, the editors of The Journal can be forgiven for the error, for we are boldly going where no exchequer has gone before. As the late Carl Sagan might have said, Trillions upon trillions….
Welcome to the twenty-teens, or whatever we are going to call this brave new decade, which begins not on January 1, 2011, but next Tuesday, around noon. To prepare ourselves for the big event, let’s get out our pencils and let’s do a little ‘rithmatic.
The prefix for trillion, as we know from super-computer lingo, is “tera.” I propose a neologism for our times: terafy.
I’m ill-equipped for the task, having had room-temperature math SAT scores. But why should that disqualify me? If we learned anything during the Crash of ’08, it’s surely that no one knows anything. All those years we thought Alan Greenspan was the smartest man in the room, and what did he know? “The fundamentals are sound.” Thanks, Alan. How much are you getting for a speech these days?
First, let’s genuflect at the statue of good old Sen. Everett Dirksen, who in the 1960s’ so memorably quipped, apropos governmental-budgeting process, “A million here, a million there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Senator, thou shoulds’t be living at this hour….
How much is a trillion dollars, anyway? Alan, would you like to explain to the class?
Well, in the most basic terms, it’s a 1 followed by 12 zeros. Or as Austin Powers might say: one million million. Let’s see … if one million contestants on Who Wants to be a Millionaire won the big prize … well, the producers would probably be sacked.
The prefix for trillion, as we know from super-computer lingo, is “tera.” I propose a neologism for our times: terafy. (V. tr.: To instill fear by mentioning the US deficit.)
Being innumerate, I need equivalencies to help my poor mind wrap around Grendel-size mathematical concepts.
Last Saturday, I attended the (splendid and moving) commissioning ceremony of our newest nuclear aircraft carrier, CVN77 George H.W. Bush. These 95,000 tons of “force projection,” as the Defense Department puts it, cost $6.2 billion. Dividing $1.2 trillion by $6.2 billion…161 aircraft carriers. Before you wail, Why do we need another aircraft carrier?, let me say, I don’t know, but if it makes you feel better, it’s the last of the Nimitz-class carriers. The next class of carriers are each the size of Rhode Island, so this one will probably look like a bargain.
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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One Hell of a Speech
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
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Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
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Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
chesters
Two corrections:
First, I believe Dirksen used "Billion", not "Million" in his immortal quote.
Second 1000/50 = 20, so only 20 Bernies, not 200, are needed for a trillion.
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Genni2002
Spot on as usual. So, could you please explain to me why it is that we allow these bank folks to make soooo much money in the first place? They don't have to be technically bright, they use spreadsheets, software with apparently complete disregard for fundamental accounting and economics and etc., which others created. It irritates the snot out of me when they talk about their 'products' which are really just bundling of someone else's company, mortgage, retirement money or what have you into some investment 'vehicle' or let's just call it for want of a better name: ponzi scheme. BFD!
It is getting really annoying to hear that we want to go back to growing the economy when, as it turns out, we were NEVER really growing it in the first place. We were ponzi-ing it, as it were. We got these Wall Streeters getting money from us and people who actually really do sell a product or create something like, car manufacturers do, for example, have to beg and squeal like pigs for money.
It is really wrong to give the banks all this power; they can screw up the wazoo and then have absolutely nothing bad happen to them. The bunch of ponzers!! We have to pay them to hold our money in their bank, take our money out or pay a bill, pay for their glamour lifestyles and pay when they completely screw up everything while they say, we neeeeed to keep the good people. A snail without a brain could do a better job handling our economy or at least the same job but withouth the gigantic salaries, bonuses and egos!
still-trying
I'm sorry, but is Chris Buckley a comic? He certainly is as ill-informed and uncomplicated as one. Based on this thing.
mbgillil
Math check: 1.2 trillion divided by 50 billion = 24. That's 24, not 200. Love your work, though.
mbgillil
Math check: 1.2 trillion divided by 50 billion = 24. Love your work though. Math SAT scores mean nothing.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Cforchange
Keep it going, we all need to understand what has occurred and through your humor can digest how debilitating this will be.
Sure many can understand it terms of Madoff but maybe you need to add an anology for those who really will be repaying this like in the number of Xboxes, Uggs, Twin tips or Burton boards.... Truth in lending to a new level.
rpbail
Small correction: that's 'rithmetic, not '...matic...easy to remember (4th grade nun): 'rat in Tom's house might eat Tom's ice cream'
njnoecker
Hmmm ... did we detect a teeny-tiny criticism of "Mr. Obama?" Careful...a little criticism here, a little there and pretty soon you'll have your groove back! (hope springs eternal)
borisgoodenough
Ummm, wasn't Dirksen's apocryphal remark supposed to be "a billion here, a billion there..."?
Guess the Journal isn't the only one confused about orders of magnitude.
magicman
Very funny, Mr. Buckley. Verrrry, werry funny.... 'rithmatic indeed. All this spending is completely unnecessary. Nothing less than a full metal Pork-A-Thon is going on in Washington. We know that's the case, especially now that Andrew Cuomo, America's Most Entitled, has recently lost interest in being NYS Attorney General. His achievements are the stuff of Legend, the plain text being already well beyond disappointment. Another Entitled Former Clinton Guy, who ran HUD straight into the ground.
How did Bernie Madoff slip beneath Cuomo's Radar? Don't tell me A.C. was asleep at the switch again. I guess we'll have to go with the proven unproven instead of the unproven proven. There may yet be a NYS Republican Senatorial Future ... for anyone willing to run in 2010. It shouldn't be too hard to beat the man that 'never knew'. He reminds me of the two year old child, his hands covering his eyes, while declaring ''tant see me'. Cuomo is from New York isn't he? It is astonishing how little he knows of his own State. Fresh Hell abounds and he's off tilting at Windmills in the Insurance Business, collecting chump change, while the multi trillion dollar fastball flys by undetected. Nice coup there Andrew. A multi trillion dollar fastball has been thrown right under the NYS Attorney General's chin and he seems completely unaware. Truly amazing. Yea, Andrew Cuomo in the U.S. Senate. There's change I can believe in ... I need a New Country.
Seldomright
Alan Greenspan WAS the smartest man in the room - too bad when they said it he was the ONLY man in the room.
ScottRose
Ask not what you can lose for your country; ask what your country can lose for you.
The economic slowdown (cough, cough) should solve the problem of building aircraft carriers we can't really afford. You see, because aviation companies won't get credit lines to build more aircraft, it will be harder for a Pentagon spokesperson to ready an explanation of the need for new aircraft carriers.
That doesn't mean we can trust the government not to build any more aircraft carriers. But, we can trust it to take its sweet time about providing effective and reasonable regulation of the financial industry.
What would constitute effective and reasonable regulation? We can't waterboard Bernie Madoff to learn all the ruses he used to fool the SEC -- heck, we can't even be sure he won't succeed with some fraudulent plea in a plea bargain.
Change I can believe in? Please leave twenty billion dollars in unmarked quarters for me with my obliging doorman.
JD92840
DEPORT ALL ILLEGALS!
WHY ARE WE BANKRUPT
Thisis astounding and infuriating. Why isn't this in the papers?
Youthink the war in Iraq iscosting us too much?Read this:
Boy,was I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that itis the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us. I now find that to beRIDICULOUS.
I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that thereader gets sick of reading them.I also have included the URL's for verification of all the followingfacts.
1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.
Verifyat: http://tinyurl.com/zob77
2.$2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegalaliens.
Verifyat: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html;
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Verifyat: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word ofEnglish!
Verifyat: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchorbabies.
Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
6.$3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegalaliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
7.30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
Verifyat: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
8.$90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the Americantaxpayers.
Verifyat: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
9.$200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegalaliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
10.The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, theirchildren, are going to make a hugeadditional crime problem in the US .
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html &nbs p;
11.During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds ofdrugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S fromthe Southern border.
Verify at: Homeland Security Report:http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
12.The National policy Institute, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and$230 billion or an average cost ofbetween $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.'
Verifyat: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
13.In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances to their countriesof origin.
Verifyat: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm>
14.'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One million sex crimes are Committed by IllegalImmigrants In The United States.'
Verifyat: http: // www.drdsk.com/articleshtml
Thetotal cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.
Are we THAT stupid?
Thank you.
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