I've been frustrated lately with the neglect of politicians, reporters, and other public figures to actually address the debt burden that our nation faces. Paltry sums are mentioned while a $700,000,000,000 bailout is considered for major Wall Street firms. I feel it necessary to put some of these into perspective for our own good through the use of some basic, high school level mathematics.
Now, let's consider the national debt to actually get serious about some figures. The current gross federal debt stands at $9.7 trillion with the public debt, as a portion of that, being $5.3 trillion. Our national population is in the range of 300 million men, women, and children. Each individual in this nation is currently in debt to our government for somewhere around $32,000. Upon birth, each child will suddenly be burdened with this debt. This is food for thought, especially since this is only the debt that we are told about.
Of course, there are hidden costs, figure manipulations, two wars to fund, the Defense Department, our typical annual taxes, social security, huge government bailouts for irresponsible companies, Medicare, Medicaid, business incentives for large companies, etc, etc that put us in even more debt to our government each and every day. In reality, the figure for our debt to the government is likely much higher (around $59.1 trillion, and that's not an out of the ass figure) and will continue climbing until we hold the right people accountable for their actions.
And just to give some figures to put this debt ($9.7 trillion) into perspective:
-Going by this site (http://en.allexperts.com/q/Lawns-725/GRASS.htm) the average blades of grass per square foot ranges from 10,500 to 14,000.
-The number of square feet in an acre is 43,560
-This means the blades of grass per square acre ranges from 457,380,000 and 609,840,000
-To translate our debt into blades of grass means that it would take up 15,905 to 21,207 acres.
-A square mile is 27,878,400 feet.
-This brings the total blades of grass per square mile to somewhere between 292,723,200,000 and 390,297,600,000
-Our debt, in blades of grass, would cover about 24.9-33.1 square miles of grasslands.
Let's use real money here:
-Going by this site (http://www.crunchweb.net/87billion/) and doing some of my own number crunching, I figured that we can pack $4800 of one dollar bills into one cubic foot
(this would go to $24,000 in $5s, $48,000 in $10s, $96,000 in $20s, $240,000 in $50s, and $480,000 in $100s).
-Our debt would occupy 2,020,833,333 cubic feet
(404,166,666 cubic feet in $5s, 202,083,333 cubic feet in $10s, 101,041,666 cubic feet in $20s, 40,416,666 cubic feet in $50s, and 20,208,333 cubic feet in $100s).
-It would cover about 46,391 square acres
(9278 square acres in $5s, 4639 square acres in $10s, 2319 square acres in $20s, 927 square acres in $50s, and 463 square acres in $100s).
-Translated to miles it would cover roughly 72.5 square miles
(14.5 square miles in $5s, 7.2 square miles in $10s, 3.6 square miles in $20s, 1.5 square miles in $50s, and .72 square miles in $100s).
-Don't forget, this is one foot deep.
-Continuing off this "real money" trend, the Empire State Building boasts a total volume of 37,000,000 cubic feet (http://www.esbnyc.com/tourism/tourism_facts.cfm?CFID=46899)
-We would need about 54.6 Empire State Buildings worth of space to put this money somewhere
(10.9 in $5s, 5.5 in $10s, 2.7 in $20s, 1.1 in $50s, and .6 in $100s).
-And yes, I mean packing the building wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling.
Notice that I did not even bother with the $59.1 trillion; I have hope that the “paltry” sum of $9.7 trillion put things into perspective. This is real money that our government is dealing with. We're not joking around when we pay them our taxes, so why are they joking around with us when they spend them?
P.S.
You know how in movies there are the criminals who hold a lot of people hostage, hold some deadly disease hostage, or hold the machine of doom hostage? You know how they usually get a briefcase stacked full with $1,000,000? They always want them in unmarked $20s. Funny thing is that they never do the math. The average briefcase holds .7 cubic feet of space, .8 if you’re lucky. Remember the previously mentioned figures? 1 cubic foot of space holds $96,000 in $20s, meaning that .7 cubic feet would hold only $67,200. This means one thing: either the criminals in these movies are complete morons and forget to count the money, or the film makers don’t know how to stack their $20s very well. Pick one.
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