...but it will buy me a lot of everything else.
As long as I can remember, economics has never been my forte. Well, unless you count extorting money from my parents as an economic activity, then I'm skilled at a part of economics. Otherwise, I don't really understand how money could support or strangle a country with all its consequences. I rarely read the business part in the newspaper, and when I do scan an article out of curiosity, I don't have any idea what it's talking about. Taxes, stocks, commodities - they're as alien to me as the internet is to McCain.
However, these days I just can't escape from the news about the US economy meltdown and the possibility of a subsequent worldwide depression. Freddie and Fannie Mac; Lehman Bros; AIG; Washington Mutual. These names are competing for the most tragic story in every channel of news with tales of bankruptcy and all that jazz. Then, the issue has become one of the main points in the US Presidential race with both candidates trying to gain the confidence of voters in this matter. Honestly, I don't know how this whole thing started except about the fact that Americans are borrowing more money than they can afford and the banks were too glad to lend as much money as possible. The cause also has something to do with the housing industry bubble, which eventually burst due to oversupply of homes in the country.
I just updated myself (read: opened Wikipedia) and apparently, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 -or simply the bailout plan- was passed by the Congress and signed by Dubya. What is this Act? From what I can gather, it will give the US Treasury US$700 billion to go on a distressed-assets shopping spree. It is an attempt to rescue the US economy, and possibly the world's too. I don't know how they're going to throw the lifesaving 700 billion dollars to help the drowning economy. Nevertheless, with the help of some basic math, we can figure out many things we can buy with that ginormous sum of money. (Seven hundred billion dollars, that's a '7' with eleven zeroes following it: 700,000,000,000; just in case you're wondering.) I have traversed the net to compile many stats about this 700 billion, especially for you guys. This will be a silly post; you have been warned.
If you have that kind of money with you, you can give about $2300 to each person in the United States or $6200 per household. Or maybe you want to treat each American to 4500 McDonald's Apple Pie, that's fine. You can also jolt every Brazilian with 2 cups of Starbucks coffee everyday in a year, unless you want to buy a brand new Hummer for each of the 11 million living in Cuba. Why stop there? You can also literally buy Coca-Cola for the whole world, 2-litre bottle every week for a year. Are you game enough? With such money, you can buy 10 Monopoly games for each of the world's 6.7 billion human beings. Last but not least, you can help Alaskans (including Mrs Sarah "Tina-Fey-glasses" Palin) see Russia a lot more clearly from their houses by buying each of them 10.5 million lightbulbs.
If you are more of an individualistic person, you don't have to spend all that money on being Santa Claus. You can run your own country, or buy one for fun. For example, you can buy the Netherlands, which isn't too bad, or two Denmarks. Definitely a great bargain. That $700 billion dollars will also give you the right to humiliate Bill Gates: twelve Bill Gateses to be exact. Feeling devilish? Start your own war: the US govt has spent only a little bit over $600 billion in Iraq so far. Then again, if you somehow think that this monster cannot be stopped, you can prepare yourself and buy 400 space shuttles to launch yourself away to colonize another planet.
I'm trying to put it in local perspective -this is an original work, mind you. In rupiah, $700 billion sounds even scarier: '7' with 11 zeroes, multiply with '9' with 3 zeroes (that's taking the lower estimate). Say your prayers, honey; it's 63 with 14 zeroes. Rp6,300,000,000,000,000. You can give each of Indonesia's 235 million citizens about Rp26,800,000 which is 27.5 times the official minimum wage in Jakarta. Get your abang gorengan, then every Indonesian can get 53,600 of those 500-rupiahs fried snacks. If you'd rather go to the movies, you can spend your life there with 180,000,000,000 tickets on your hand -taking the price in Pondok Indah XXI (Rp35,000). Well, it's not so fun to go see a movie alone, right? Take along the whole country everyday for two years.
I don't know where to look for the fancy statistics, but I'm totally sure that 63-with-14-zeroes rupiahs can educate millions of underprivileged Indonesian children, give them proper nutrition, provide adequate healthcare for the whole country, build decent infrastructure in every province, and be put to good use in helping people get themselves out of poverty. I'm not a fan of the military; however, I'm sure that Indonesian military will appreciate even just a part of the money to bring their equipments to the 21st century. Indonesia can also channel the money to its talented researchers and artists to discover the riches our nature and culture can offer: alternative energy, arts, biology, medicine, music, and many more.
The problem is...Rp6,300,000,000,000,000 doesn't grow on trees and neither does it lie around free for the taking.
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