Getting your hate on...

I probably should have checked on Valu's stocks this morning. With media's rampant reporting, and the toadying local governments doing NOTHING to quell the anger, I suspect sales of pitchforks and torches are pretty brisk.

President hussein's campaign to create Gestapo-esque fear in the lives of those who were supposed to get million dollar bonuses has succeeded all too well. In private conversations I've had with people I normally regard as intelligent, their attitude is how horrible these people are, and how right it is for the government to tax them.

After all, it IS our money, right?

You see, this is where things get kind of sticky. It ISN'T our money. The MOMENT the U.S. Government consigned it to AIG it became their money. And this particular set of dollar bills was ear-marked for these bonuses well in advance of the aid that was received, and was a known entity.

But, as I had mentioned before, president hussein is nothing if not a Faustian contract with the Devil himself... giving with one hand whilst taking with another... and he GAVE to AIG, but then TOOK from the people who had every reason to believe they had these bonuses coming.

I've had wholesale arguments with friends n this point. Arguments about how terrible these people are for taking this money... how terrible these people are for awarding these bonuses.

I couldn't figure it out until I realized what the problem really was....

The average layperson does not comprehend One Billion Dollars. It's a non-sequiter to us... we never expect to see that much money in our lives, and so bandying about the phrase "$170 Billion Dollars" is an exercise in meaninglessness.

Think I'm wrong?

Now picture this... "One Hundred Sixty five Million Dollars". We hear these terms in weekly news... a particularly successful feature film makes roughly that amount of money in a worldwide gross. Many films earn even more.

"Batman: The Dark Knight" earned the coveted "One Billion Dollar" mark and nobody batted an eye (no pun intended....).

So if someone gets a $3,000,000.00 bonus, that's criminal. Why? Because we can understand it.

Do yourselves a favor and go open up Microsoft Excel and write out the numbers "170,000,000,000.00" and "3,000,000.00" and divide one into the other. I'd suggest you do it on a calculator, but get this... most calculators DON'T go to $1,000,000,000.00.

Okay, now class, put down your pencils... Do you have the answer?

That's right... If you divide $3 million into $170 Billion you get 56,666.67 for an answer.

What does that mean?

That means that 3 million times 56,666.67 is equal to 170 billion.

It's kind of like having an avalanche of dirt fall on you, and you getting mad at a handful of soil.

THAT is the kind of waste we are looking at.

A handful of soil.

Never mind the huge mountain of dirt next to it. THAT can't be important.

Back in his late February address, president hussein said we must not govern based upon the passions of the moment, or govern in hate. Yet here he is, two weeks later, doing just that.

I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.