$700 Billion

The $700 Billion financial bailout has finally been passed by lawmakers. It seems that Americans are fine with the huge number. We hear billion dollar figures all the time from politicians. What does a number that big actually equate to? Yahoo! had an article this week comparing the bailout figures to other budgets. One comparison was NASA. Their fiscal budget for this year is around $60 billion. The article also compared it to the Forbes 400 richest people list. To match the $700 billion bailout it would take over half of the list of names handing over their entire net worth. On one hand every taxpaying American having to pay $2000+ sounds like a tremendous amount. On the other hand, it would only take 200 of the world's richest people to cover the cost of the bailout. The presidential candidates keep talking about reform and change in every speech. I would like to hear them tell us just how exactly they plan on changing the fact that we are willing to sit back and let someone run company after company into the ground and reward them for it. I know there is a part of the bailout plan that cuts off these "golden parachutes" but how much good is that really going to do? Instead of $20M they only get $5M? How about making them give back their $20M Christmas bonuses? How are they going to change the publics' opinion that it is okay to give sports figures, actors, and singers/rappers millions and millions of dollars for being famous while the average guy working to cure cancer makes $35k. Maybe Washington needs reforming but so does the American public. We need to seriously think about where we spend our money and who we put on a high and mighty pedestal!