A Thousand Million

Like most people, I get lots of email. Some of it is about Clay Aiken and some of it is not. My favorite email of today is not about Clay, unless he is a billionaire already. I don't normally discuss politics because no good usually comes of it. But this, I like.

"The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" casually, think about whether you want that politician spending your tax dollars.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective:

A billion seconds ago, it was 1975.

A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it."

Not one to believe much (if any) of what I get in my email, or even read on the Internet, I often do a little research myself. So in this case, I visited Snopes to get the scoop. Yep, pretty close on all counts.

Except worse.

According to Snopes, Washington is actually spending twice as much as this email states, which would mean a billion dollars ago was only 4 hours and 10 minutes.

Just thought you would want to know!