While bankrupting American taxpayers to help out greedy jerks on Wall Street may seem like a good idea, it's helpful to think about what $700 billion actually means.
Some tidbits from around the Web for your perspective:
For $100 billion you can get Universal Health Care for all people in the U.S. without health insurance.
For $35 billion you can get universal preschool. Half-days for 3-year-olds and full days for 4-year-olds.
For $10 Billion you can carry out all the security recommendations issued by the 9/11 commission.
For those of you in Boston, $700 billion can also buy 40 Big Digs and 14 million years' worth of tuition, room, and board at Harvard.
Also:
$700 billion is nine times the amount spent on education in 2007.
It is $140 billion more than has been spent on the Iraq war since the invasion.
It can buy free broadband access for every American for the next 200 years.
It can give 23 million Americans a free college education.
Titanic, the highest-grossing film of all time, raked in $1.8 billion.
$700 billion is equal to 17 Bill Gateses.
The Marshall Plan, which bailed out all of Western Europe after World War II, cost $13 billion (about $100 billion in today's dollars).
(Sources: CJR, BuzzMachine, Slate, Consumerist, Boston Globe)
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