Counting to a billion

At some time in the past I heard or read about a study that was devoted to understanding how the human mind perceives numbers, amounts, and values. I can't recall what the source of this study was or where I heard it but if I recall it went something like this:

The Human mind can easily comprehend 1 unit of something; for our example we'll use marbles. Therefore 1 marble in an individuals hand is easily identifiable to us as 1 marble. This pattern holds true up to 4 marbles when most people would say (at first glance) that there are a "few marbles in your hand". After three units of nearly anything (barring maybe massive objects like buildings or ships or something of that nature) our minds instinctively begin to comprehend things in groups. Based on this, anything after 4 marbles until we got to lets say 7 marbles would be a "few" but at 7 or so we'd say that there was a "bunch". After seven this ideology continues until (again if I recall correctly) at about 13 marbles we instinctively say there is "a lot" of them. Then as we continue the actual number held in a persons hand (now they probably fit only in a Dixie cup or bowl etc.) becomes rather insignificant to us because we increasingly lose the ability to comprehend how many units of anything there actually are.

It is because of the reasoning above that we all at some point in our lives have most likely unsuccessfully guessed at how many "somethings" are in a jar, can't estimate how big a crowd is, or can't fathom the specifications of our latest and greatest technological advances and engineering triumphs.

Since all of the talk these days in the news seems to be about "Billion Dollar Bailouts" or "Trillions of Dollars Pledged" I figured it would be prudent to understand just how much a billion really is.

According to some of my quick research on this, all of the following represent a billion of something and were taken from www.mathforum.org more specifically from How Much is a Billion?:

-How big is a billion? If a billion kids made a human tower, they would stand past the moon.

-If you sat down to count from one to one billion you would be counting for 95 years

-If you found a goldfish bowl large enough to hold a billion goldfish it would be as big as an average stadium.

Or you may have heard this one as I had regarding time:

A billion seconds ago it was approximately 1959, yet a billion minutes ago Jesus was alive, and a billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

Now that we understand what a billion is, here are a couple of my own thoughts...

If the Big Three Auto Manufactures are bailed out its entirely plausible to assume they'll be burning through $9 Billion every 2 weeks based on numbers that they themselves presented as an argument for an auto industry bailout to congress (November 17th they needed $25 billion - December 3rd they need $34 Billion) that means collectively they'd need a billion dollars approximately every 1 day and 16 hours. Making the leap; this means the auto industry will be through all of the bailout money in just over a month under current economic conditions.

In 2005 Ford set a global car sales record with the F-150 moving a staggering 939,511 trucks in that year alone! That is approximately a truck every 36 seconds every single day of the year with no breaks! Taking the low end of listed MSRP on the F150 that year of $20,475 (Because most F150 sales were fleet related) Ford would have had Gross Revenue of $1 Billion after approximately 48,840 sales or 20 days and 8 hours of sales.

A man working in the United States at the median average individual wage level earned $45,113 in 2007. A billion dollars (unfettered and allowed to pass cleanly) could employ 22,166 people for a year at the median income.

All of the following government funded projects cost tax payers approximately a billion dollars (some slightly over some significantly less) in current inflation adjusted dollars. The Hoover Dam, Mackinac Bridge, Lincoln Tunnel, The Brooklyn Bridge, and The Golden Gate Bridge.

...and here are some thoughts on the $34 billion dollar bailout plan

Assuming all the auto manufactures currently had F150 record success with every car they had in their respective line ups it would take them 2.4 years to generate $34 billion in GROSS revenue. (If you're thinking profit margins and sale prices vary I agree they do, however remember that the F150 is an incredibly profitable vehicle and I feel its margins as well as its price at $20,475, are reasonable for this assumption).

With $34 Billion we could PROMISE the employment of 100,000 people at $45,113 a year for 7.5 years...

With $34 Billion we could rebuild ALL of the public works projects listed above in my billion dollar thoughts and have nearly $30 Billion dollars left over. After this we could complete any number of the following projects, all of which help the entire tax paying population: Widen or create a second Panama Canal, Build an aircraft carrier, Fund another Manhattan Project (the Atomic Bomb) or other $25 billion dollar science/technology project, END WORLD HUNGER FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR!

If you think I'm being unrealistic on some of this stuff think back to the examples above regarding how we cannot comprehend size as human beings. Then try to comprehend that $34 Billion dollars is more than the annual GDP of 103 out of the 179 countries that have a reportable GDP! Just think we could support any one of 103 entire nations for a year on this amount!

To Bail or Not to Bail that is the question

Being from Michigan and having many friends and family members associated with the auto industry I must admit I am severely torn about what should or should not be done for Detroit. Personally I'd love to see the ones I'm close to and my home state get the support, however economically I fear the idea is genocide and overtime will aid in the destruction of even more American livelihoods.

Setting personal afflictions aside, before you start to make a choice about how you feel about the bailout plans for Wall Street or Detroit consider how staggering the cost of these plans actually are. Ask yourself if its really worth it for America? Ask yourself if the money will last long enough to actually solve anything? Ask yourself if the creation of new jobs to rebuild common infrastructure, and the employment of those who already are out of work would be a better use of $34 billion dollars? Then after you've thought about it and really looked at yourself in the mirror; smile.

Yes I said Smile.

Remind yourself that no matter how bad it gets we're lucky to have what we do! Remember how fortunate we are to even be faced with the OPTION of using $34 Billion dollars for a bailout! Reach down, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and remember that we all need to work as hard as we can and sacrifice together to make things better. Hand outs never have gotten anyone anyplace worth going, so Dig in Detroit! Everyone is rooting for you! We'll all get through this thing together no matter how mind boggling it gets. So Here's to counting to a billion Lord knows we'll need it.