Here is an excerpt
Crowe believes the US government should give each American $US1 million
($1.26 million).
His reasoning is the US has a population of about 300
million, so the $US300 million outlay is a fraction of the $US700 billion
financial bailout package rejected by politicians in Washington DC
yesterday.
"I was thinking," Crowe said.
"If they want to stimulate the
economy and get people spending so they can look after their mortgage ... give
everyone $1 million."
I like the idea! That is a good recommendation.
Hmmm, hang on, have you got the maths right? If the US gov has $300m and would give $1m to 300m people, hang on, that means the US gov has to shell out $300 trillion or so dollars. That is beyond $300m. Or if you have $300m and distribute this to the US population of 300m, they will have to give just $1.00 each.
Hmm, this means we should retthink twice when electing actors to government office, no? Tip: I know I learned from Filipino politics. Over there you could get elected for having the right face not by the right credentials.
OK Ronald Reagan was the exception but such types are like Halley's comet, they come only once in 76 years.
3 comments:
The term billion orginally meant million million. The Americans used it as a thousand million, and with time, that has become the common usage. So Crowe is correct in one sense, but completely off in another.
Tis will happen if you reject the King/Queens English...
Scylds,
Ya reckon?
Even if he uses $300B,he is still off the mark, right? I think it is a maths problem rather than english.
To clear off this confusion, we don't we be consistent like they do it in IT?
We should say mega dollars instead of million dollars and giga dollars instead of billion dollars. What do you think?
In this climate, maybe we'd be better off talking about 1000 million EURO's.....
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