Monday, November 8, 2010

Six Hundred Billion Crisp, New One-Dollar Bills

Treasury Secretary Geithner met with China's vice-minister for Finance. As the BBC reports it:

Mr Wang gave his backing to the US Federal Reserve's controversial decision to restart quantitative easing - effectively printing dollars to buy up US government debt.

That's a lot of paper and a lot of ink. Wish I could print money whenever I needed it...sigh.

P.S. According to this, one million one-dollar bills weighs 2200 lbs, so that's 600,000 of those, or a total of 1,320,000,000 lbs. An average tractor-trailer carries, what, 20 tons? So that's 33,000 semis full of one-dollar bills.

Hey, I know! Why not give unemployed people jobs printing all that money? Think of all that work: producing the paper and ink, shipping them to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, driving the 33,000 trucks back and forth, forklift operators...now there is some stimulus!

Or, think of it like this: what if an asteroid or comet weighing 1.32 billion pounds hit the earth? Actually, this funny-money will probably do just as much damage, with a lot less kinetic energy.

1 comment:

Joanna said...

I'd go swimming in it, but the puddle over the septic tank looks more inviting. Hey, they're the same shade of green ...